Vengeance

My husband has a really hard time understanding this as well. He doesn't get why I hate all the pictures of us, even the family ones now, when they were such a treasure to me before. In fact, I am tearing up even thinking about/typing that. It hurts.
For me, those 15 years of history we had all feel like a lie. He was experiencing it knowing everything, and I wasn't. He knew about the P, I didn't. He knew I thought P was cheating, I told him, he did it anyway rather than having a conversation with me about it. There are so many memories/experiences tainted now because of it. I have no idea which times he came out of the bathroom after watching P and acted completely normal, gave me a kiss, etc. Or those times he wanted sex with me, was it just because he was turned on by P, not me, but because I was the body there he could act out this P or fantasy with? While I was pregnant, growing HIS child, he used P excessively. And after they were born because the baby was getting "his" attention now. My most precious memories, even those involving things like this with a baby, family life, they are all tainted. There are countless examples, it would take me days to type them all out, but yeah, it ruined it all, an otherwise great marriage. It was the first thing he did when waking up every morning, the last thing he did before he went to sleep. Every day. He would tell me goodnight and go PMO. Knowing I'm feet away all this time? It sends off lightbulbs in my head of things that didn't make sense to me at the time, now they do. Things he wanted to do with/to me... all came from P. It makes me sick to think about. And worse that the P is all the lies about it. All the trust I had in him, it just makes me feel stupid now.
So yeah, it does erase it, 15 years... all shit now.

 

Thanks. I guess this is a bit of a raw spot for me. I'm doing OK in daily life, but some subjects surrounding PMO still really get me. This obviously being one of them.

 

*Hugs

 

I definitely see where you're coming from with the distinctions between vengeance and relationship repair. While I have certainly been angry enough to just do things to hurt my SO in return for all the hurtful things his addiction did to me... I have restrained myself, mostly. Because I can't see that helping either of us. But I have said some hurtful things before, during sex, that I knew would bother him, just to get the reaction I wanted. I acted like a P star to get him to realize that I'm not. I hope that makes sense.

But does passive aggression count as vengeance? I guess that's where my question lies. I do a lot of passive aggressive things still. It's a hard thing for me to break.

I believe that if we replace vengeance with healthy boundaries to make ourselves feel safe and secure so that we don't HAVE to resort to these actions, we'll all be much better off. A strong boundary/consequence system shouldn't be seen as vengeance, I don't think. A consequence is a direct result of our partner ignoring the boundary. Does that count as us getting back at them? This is really good deep thinking. Gosh.

 

The intent is to start over

 

Whether with or without the same partner

If I'm making myself clear

 

Right, it doesn't have to be Equal to be death and change.
Or vengeance.
For instance...
what about when a building is remodeled?
Sometimes you have to rip out the whole wall because it's molding and put up a new wall.
A better wall.
Doesn't matter how pretty or old it was, if it's a hazard, it's gotta go.
Replace it.
Make it look like the old one.
Whatever.
Make it stronger.
Add mold spray.
You still have to sledge hammer it... The mold was slowly killing it.
You can wait for the mold to crumble it down... But is that equal?
No.
Does it need to happen for regrowth?
Absolutely.
Do you want to add more mold so it crumbs faster?
Probably not.
But either way
.. You have to do something about that wall. It's necessary to be equal

 

Ha.. Funny.
In my Lists we did a workshop on relationship problems.. It was brutal.

But also when I felt like that wasn't enough in another workshop I asked for a second honesty hour... So he could relive our entire relationship through my eyes through porn filter.
It was cruel.
I was mean.
Imagine going back through step by step and hearing the other side and the emotions, both sets "I happily cooked dinner - why you hid in the bedroom, if I had known I'd have dumped gravy on you"
I made him do our whole relationship.
Then told him to rewrite us.
It was emasculating.
I'm surprised he took it.
He needed the mirror tho

 

I'm out of likes.
But yes.