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I have a therapy session with my husband tonight (his counsellor). My H has told her that I’m not too good at times and when I’m not feeling good I go over my stash of evidence. The evidence is phone records and a couple of credit card statements. I had a lot more but a couple of years ago I threw a lot away. I would look at it constantly. I would spend hours and hours looking over it and I knew it wasn’t good for me so one weekend while my husband was in New Zealand I threw is away. First of all I threw it in the garbage bin outside but I was so sick at that time I went and dug it out to look at it so I ended up burning it in the fireplace. It is true that from time to time I do look over what is left but the periods of time between are further apart. The therapist told my h it would be best (for me) if I threw the evidence away. I don’t want to. Sometimes in my bat shit crazy world I wonder what is real. I think my husband tries to minimise the time period and the extent of what he did. The phone evidence goes back to 2005. There are 4 credit card statements from 2007 and there is 1 visit to a brothel on 2 of them. I don’t even know why these credit card statements are around. We usually throw them out. I don;t know why I have these old phone bills. Perhaps God had a hand in keeping these.
I’m going to stand my ground on this and tell her I won’t be throwing this stuff away. I’m also going to talk to her about formal disclosure.
I had emailed her about me going to Minwalla but she didn’t return my email. I think she thinks she can counsel both of us. I don’t agree.
What do you girls think?I think your gut feeling is dead on balls accurate Catherine. Do NOT under any circumstances throw any evidence away. You can put it away and not look but do not throw it away.
BTW, the counselor is full of shit and on “his side” like they all are. They have one goal “save the marriage’ at any cost.
Cat, get yourself a secret safety deposit box and put all of your evidence in there. (If it were me, I would try to get copies of the stuff you disposed of while you still can.) Don’t let that bitch try to ‘rewrite history’. Something happened to you, Cat, and you should never forget it.
While you’re at it, put all of your important papers and records in there and start stashing some cash as well. You never know when you might need it.
Liza I don’t feel like I need the stuff I threw away. I have enough to know it all happened. I have enough to know it wasn’t once or twice. I know it went on for many years. The evidence is in a file at the back of the filing cabinet. He would never even go into the filing cabinet other than to get his passport. He hasn’t a clue what I even file in there. I also have the phone records on my computer from 2009 when he had his 3 week ‘affair’ with the hooker.
There is no fault divorce in Australia so it will not be helpful to me for anything legal. It grounds me and protects me.Yeah, and as I guess there’s no chance in hell you’re ever going to forget what happened it’s probably not necessary. 🙁 It all just sucks, Cat.
Cat, I’m so sorry. I agree with the advice to save what you have now, and tuck it away somewhere very safe. You just never know what the future might hold or what you might need. I’m so sorry that’s the case. 🙁 But better to be prepared.
Catherine, I had some stuff I used to go through obsessively and then less, and then bring out on my bad days. I didn’t want to, but in a fit of something, I deleted or threw everything out so that I wouldn’t keep doing that to myself. Going through those things seemed like something I needed to do to feel better, but the result was that I felt horrible when I put myself back there and it was one of the things that kept me stuck. I have had moments on bad days where I wished I had them back early on, but they were gone and I had to find other things to do, other ways to deal with those funk days. I don’t ever wish I had them back anymore, because now I realize how bad that was for me, it kept me stuck in his life and out of my own. If you’re not ready to throw them out, I would take Liza’s suggestion and get a safe deposit box and put them in there, because you’d really have to want to go and look to see them then, and you would still know that they were available if you wanted them. I’m upset that your husband/therapist are telling you to throw them out. This is your life, you’re in charge. Do whatever YOU want. And if you go with a much less accessible place like a safe deposit box, or decide to throw them away, or decide to continue exactly what you are doing, it’s not their business, it’s yours.
I don’t think your crazy Catherine. I think you are traumatized, and still finding it hard to believe any of this actually happened. You go back to touch the wound not to hurt yourself again, but to remind yourself you aren’t crazy.
IMO, of course.
Hang in there, sister.
D.xoI didn’t explain why I need to keep it to my husband but I will. He just told me Heide said I should throw it out in the context of running through his last therapy session. I don’t know if he always understands my decisions or actions but he always accepts them.
Courtney I don’t have to go back and look at them very often at all now. Its is funny though that when I have a trigger like my husband’s bad mood a few weeks ago my first thought is to go into the Study and review my evidence. I don’t always look but the urge is there. Reflecting back my thoughts go like this….bad mood, doesn’t really want to be with me, he is unhappy, he really is an asshole, go look at evidence because that confirms it. Gosh humans are peculiar creatures!
I don’t see why the therapist would suggest that it would be helpful to throw the evidence out. It doesn’t increase my trauma and hurt when I look at it. It won’t make my h’s behaviours go away. History will not change. I also like to have them because sometimes my husband will say the behaviour only happened for a couple of years and it only every few months. I’m sure he does this to protect himself not from a barrage of criticism from me but as a coping mechanism because he feels so lousy about what he has done he can make himself believe a new version of events BUT he needs to be truthful to me and to himself. I have never shown him what I have. I have never shoved it in his face and said ‘no this is what you did and here is the truth’ I just quietly say ‘no it happened as far back as 2005’ etc etc. Truth is really important to me.Catherine, the last therapist I saw told me to write my thoughts in a journal, get it all out there, don’t show anyone and then burn it! Ok, now I understand the concept and that its meant to be healing. But…for me it so much unfinished business that I just couldn’t burn my words. Painful reminder of all that’s occurred but I just wasn’t ready. This was when we were trying to work it out. Ironically my h was supposed to journal and burn too….not one word did he write. I’m thinking your holding onto these things is much the same as me…you’re just not ready yet!
T I think you are right. Maybe there will be a day when I feel I can get rid of it but not at the moment when I don’t feel secure and we are still trying to save the marriage. If I decide to end the marriage then I probably won’t need it anymore.
I keep everything scanned and in a folder on my computer and backed up on cd in a deposit box. I have little kids and there’s no way I’m letting him get any kind of custody of them. I could see throwing it away after he’d proven sobriety for say 5 years… but until then I keep it. I don’t look at it too obsessively though. It’s filed and away. I do read my blog a lot though. 5 years of pain and reminders of why I can’t trust this sa jerk. I read it when I’m feeling my resolve disappearing. It’s a good record and dated too if I need it.
Keep everything – for as long as YOU feel you should. I got rid of evidence from years ago and here we are 13 years later. He got so good at hiding things and I stopped looking for it. I am sure there is plenty on our PC, and I have that stashed at a friends along with the external hard drive. I am just not ready to spend what it will cost to get it forensically analyzed. I’d rather put the $ toward my down payment for my beach cottage. I probably know enough anyway. I have a few things in a fireproof, strong box. Letters of apology for hurting me, a couple of emails and the DVD I just found a few months ago. The box is in a locked closet and when he is here in the house on weekends I keep the keys on me. I hate this. I hate all of this.
I plan to keep everything, absolutely everything until I die. Why not? I don’t have the time to look at it, but if I ever want to, I want it available to me, every, single piece of evidence. Let us know what the counselor says to you, Catherine. I agree, your husband needs to work toward full disclosure. He needs to get this all down on paper and stop minimizing any of it, not even in his vocabulary used to describe his behavior.
Catherine, this is just hurting my heart for you. Thinking about you going through the evidence..It’s so familiar to me, but I don’t want any of us to be in that position or go over that horrible pain. You keep whatever you need to keep, and hell with what the therapist says. Even though it’s been over a year and a half since discovery, I still get those times where I feel compelled to go and look at the evidence. Thankfully not very often, but it all just sucks. This was supposed to be a love relationship, not an episode of CSI. And I think you have the patience of a saint being able to just correct him quietly instead of throwing it in his face. xoxo
please please throw nothing away. i really like the idea of a safety box.
if i could make a suggestion,an just for kicks, have a free consultation with a divorce attorney. talk to them about throwing away the evidence. then bring it up and disclolse that in therapy. that will shut your sah’s bff therapist, right up. i think you should disclose what idiotic advice you were given. make it all about you. and not him.
bring tissues. i guarantee he’ll be crying. as soon as you mention attorney. they suddenly become sober. and maybe the therapist will take your pain more seriously. rght now, she has completely dismissed you.
she should be fired
I destroyed everything after a year. I hacked into his email when I found the first video and then saw the extent of what he had done – all of this backed up credit card bills, flights, restaurants etc. I have had no desire to re-establish that kind of evidence and it doesn’t help me in my divorce – but I understand the desire to hold on to it. You will let go when it is right for you and his therapist is not the person to guide that. I remember the night I compiled my file of photos, emails, meeting times, and hotel receipts as well as calls he made to me when our house was flooded from his bed with a male prostitute- I don’t need the evidence I am trying to heal my heart. Proof of his asshole behavior doesn’t help in that – if you are in anyway ambivalent or still living in fear it probably serves a purpose. I am still out on whether true recovery – I do want a better father for my sons and as Bev said in another post, we can divorce them, they cannot. If you feel a need to keep the shit I agree that you should look for a safe place out of the house – love Meg
Dear Cat, your husband is minimizing and gas lighting you. Your husband’s therapist DOES NOT know what she is doing. If she did she would be setting up a formal disclosure instead of telling you to get rid of your evidence. I will be so relieved when you finally get to Minwalla and get some sane advice about handling a man like your husband. I feel certain, by the time you come back from there, you will be looking at everything in a whole different light. Karen xx
Unfortunately they ran out of time in the session tonight so I didn’t get to speak to her.
Pam there is no fault divorce in Australia. He could have had 400 girlfriends and it would make no difference to property settlement. There is absolutely no reason for me to hold onto this stuff for legal reasons. I just need it for me because it is real.Cat, then keep it for you. If it is “real” then he isn’t? There is that way of looking at it. Of course, he is interested in you leaving this behind. Of course, he is. You keep the evidence because you are not ready to leave it behind. I call that self preservation- not crazy.
Cat – all of your decisions and choices right now should only be about you and what makes you feel safe and secure. I am trying to think through my decisions and choices to see who gets the most benefit if I do xxx. If it is not me, then I rethink it. Put yourself and your healing first. No one can tell you when you are ready to do something – only you have that time table. And no one has your best interest as their #1 priority except you. Love yourself, take care of yourself and put yourself first.
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