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For many of us, a moment or moments of truth, happened that moved us from making the marriage the priority to making ourselves and our children the priority. In those moments of truth we could see clearly what we couldn’t see before about the men with whom we were in a relationship. Something galvanized within us about priorities and justice and action. Maybe we knew that all the therapists and groups in the world would not touch what was fundamentally wrong with him. Maybe we recognized his own priority would never be for us and our children. Maybe we saw there was little mutuality in the past, present or future. However we might describe, these were moments of truth, and we understood the difference between hope and hopium. We changed our approach. We adjusted our sails (as one helpful quote suggested). And it is hard for us to go back and spend energy on what we know is a waste of time and energy.
What was that moment of truth for you?
I think it might help some of the newer sisters to understand that shift within us that cannot humour the hopium quest.
I hope I’ve explained this well enough to respond.First came the,fundamental belief in the goodness of what SA SAID.
Then came the shock that he was going to strip clubs. Moment of truth #1. Followed by hopium.
Then came 8 years of blatant lying., After years of therapy. I,said it,is over, separated for two years.,Smoked hopium just once and recommitted myself to SA.
THEN CAME THE PSYCHOTIC BREAK AND THE REAL MONSTER IN HIM WAS FRONT AND CENTER FOR 6 months. I broke. Ended up crying and shaking for hours, hours, all night, into the next day. This time, it was not a period of feeling, i was only about horrible feelings. It lasted for months. He seemed satisfied. He showed me that I was the sicko all along. A true mental case. I knew different.
IT WAS OVER. I REALIZED HE WOULD STOP AT NOTHING TO DESTROY EVERYTHING I CARED ABOUT INCLUDING ME. AND, I WAS A DECENT, HARDWORKING SUCCESSFUL RN AND LOVING MOTHER. ME? Someone would hurt me? ME?
My life collapsed. Every corner of stability was in peril. He still blamed me. ME?
That was my final moment of truth. And, it was preventable.
Mine was very external, I was not smart and brave and self honoring. I was just flat out horrified into realizing I was not dealing with a normal or safe human being. When I saw the torture porn collection I snapped. After that, even the moments when I was externally working things through, internally I was swimming for the opposite shore. ALL actions from that point on were to make safe distance in a way that did NOT provoke whatever in him allowed him to pleasure in mutilating women.
There were a few moments when I was in actual denial that I had seen/heard what I had. My mind was not 100% for a while. Still isn’t. But I wrote the book, and doing so forced me to cleanly organize my experiences while with him. That is undeniable and was what “adjusted my sails” regularly.
Probably not very helpful for other sisters, in making a solid choice. I hope no one else has to experience that. Whatever hope there might have been for his “recovery”, you still have a human at the core who used other people in a plethora of ways that ranged from deceit to abuse to witnessed rapes and murders. There’s a line crossed there that nobody who recognizes human dignity and value can cross. Behavior modifications and medications and psychotherapy cannot give you a soul.
The moment I felt the best about, that was most empowering, was getting him to sign the separation agreement. We had lived apart for a year already, and I had to be with him at his place five states away for 3 days to get it done, and I was scared to frigging death he would flip the switch from adoring husband trying to win me back to… the other. I had no idea what he was into at that stage. I had disconnected and detached for my own health. I got out with papers he didn’t want to sign actually signed and notarized, and though he cried and begged that i not make the separation “real” he never got enraged. That felt like closure and a victory.
Hmmm,
Had a close call 18 years ago. Went through several months of MC while he lied about an affair he was having at the time. I caught him by finding a box of condems in his jeep. Only then did he admit to affair. I had 4 little kids, and gave him a second chance. It never fully went away. I never completely trusted him.
Fast forward 18 years….he got way better at lying and going underground with his addiction. He acted out at work. He was director of the nursing homes he acted out in. Nobody reported him for fear they would lose their jobs. If I ever checked upon him, he would indeed be where he said he was. If I actually went in to the nursing home, he would have been warned by the girls at the front desk, and I would have found him with a patients chart in his hands, “working” just like he said he was.
A series of events caused me to pull away from him. He pushed me across the bathroom floor one night bc I asked him to sit and talk and connect with me.He told me he had SA. We went to an intensive. He had 1st poly. I found out about more physical affairs. I took a HUGE leap at that time towards disconnecting from him.
After much resistance from him, our MC finally helped me to get him out of the house so I could think straight. ‘Therapeautic separation”….yeah, right. He was going to AA meetings bc we don’t have SA meetings here. He found a 30 something girl….she saw an opportunity to get her claws into a doctor. I had no idea this was going on behind the scenes.
Went for 90 day polys…found out he acted out with nursing home patients and one of the family dogs( who likes to lick…ugh). THAT was a huge break right there. I realized how sick he is. Gave him my boundry that I would not even consider discussing anything with him unless he showed my HEART true compassion and remorse for what he did. It never happened.
HE filed for divorce in June. He thinks he is all better and life is wonderful with fantasy woman. I know that is a great big joke. He is in no way shape or form well. He is a sick and demented man. He went no contact. Best thing he has ever done for me, ever.
Yep, I have been curious occasionally about where he is , etc. We were married a very long time and have 4 adult children together. Then my mind clicks into ‘I don’t care where he is’ and back on taking care of myself.
He is still blaming me and is probably’ oh so grateful’ that he got away from me and that he is in’such a healthy’ new relationship.
I wish I left him 18 years ago…..if I only knew then what I know now.
For me, it was more a series of fairly mundane moments that did it. At the start of the disclosure he said “I was increasingly unhappy in the marriage.” “The Marriage.” Like it was a separate entity that he lied to, cheated on, and stole from not me – the person who was his best friend, his wife and his lover. All I could think about was all the happy and unhappy moments I thought we had shared, that I thought had brought us closer together as a couple. The plans we had for being empty nesters, the dreams of retirement. It felt like it all meant nothing to him. I wrote him a long letter filled with my pain after the disclosure. His response: “I will try to respond at some point”. He never did. And a few weeks later he quit therapy and lied about when I asked him. There are more but basically it boils down to various realizations on my part of how disconnected he is. How shut down emotionally. How unwilling he is to work to save our relationship. And my own realization that I don’t want to live without emotional intimacy, or connection or trust. I’d rather just be alone than be alone in a marriage.
Wow. Ladies, not only do I commend you for leaving, I can’t believe you made it out with your sanity! Those stories are eye opening. It’s unbelievable just how awful thus stuff can get.
It’s also very clear why you caution those of us who are just beginning this journey.
If my husband had done any one of those things, he’d be divorced so fast his head would spin. If he had ever tried to blame me for this in any way, I’d be gone.
Y’all are some strong women!
My moment of truth came when I read his notebook from ISH. It was supposed to be his but of course I snooped and found it ( and copied it..).
It wasn’t any big revelation as far as what he had done ( I knew all that). It was the way he spoke to himself about it. It wasn’t just disrespectful to me and marriage in general …. It was so childish and immature. It was like a teenage boy wrote it… a young teenage boy. In fairness it was supposed to be between him and Minwalla but I figured I damn well needed to know what I was dealing with. Minwalla told me all the stuff but he spares the ugly details that really isn’t something that anyone should hear. I needed to hear them.
Then I went back to all the shitty stuff he said about me during MC. I knew I hated him.
It made me sick and I knew right then that he was sick.
My moment of truth- when dad’s naked photos of him and other woman and there messages indicating sexual relationship popped up in front of my son in a room full of his friends.
Until that moment, I thought it was a porn problem and near miss at a hotel 6 years before after which he was identified as a sex addict and went into recovery. The six years he was in recovery, I have to say, was a horrible time for me. I had friends worry that it was going to kill me- literally. That’s how bad I looked. And my health was a mess. The therapy and sex addict trauma and abuse (none of which I knew the first thing about) took a terrible toll on me.
When that crap popped up in front of Bat on dad’s computer, I knew that all his recovery had been a lie and that none of his addiction had anything to do with me. It was awful and traumatic and yet a HUGE relief all at the same time. Like a million pounds lifted off of my shoulders at the same time I was hit by a truck.
Desiree, I had one of those moments when I realized that he would stop at nothing to destroy me. That’s a chilling realization- very scary. But I thought if he got into therapy, that might get better, and I was too afraid of what he would do to the kids if we got divorced. I had to try to fix it to keep my kids safe, I thought.
But it’s awful to realize that man that you have loved and pledged your life to is willing to destroy you.
“Like a million pounds lifted off of my shoulders at the same time I was hit by a truck.”
Damn, Teri, that is such an apt description.
Thank you sisters, for such open and raw sharing. I hope it will other sisters to recognize and trust their “moment of truth” should they have one.
For me, I think it was during the planning of the disclosure event, and my ex had agreed to what I required—the location would be at my therapist’s office, he could bring his SA sponsor, but not his therapist because she was a CSAT who presupposed I was co-dependent although we had never met or spoken to each other. In other words the event was planned around the victim—me—and my needs as opposed to the person whose biggest challenge of the day was to not lie for once. I gave permission for the session to be taped and for my therapist to talk to his afterward. After we got this all planned, he started to backpedal because his therapist wanted to be there after all so she could see my codependent behaviours, and just like every other time when he could have chosen me and my wellbeing and the best interests of our children over his penis and his emotionally incestuous mother, but chose them instead—-now he was choosing his CSAT therapist and what she wanted over what I wanted and needed in order to be safe and to heal—and by the way she was a former addict of some kind who worshipped 12 step religion.
I knew in that conversation that he WOULD NEVER EVER CHOOSE ME AND OUR CHILDREN OVER HIS PENIS, HIS EMOTIONALLY INCESTUOUS MOTHER, HIS FUCKING ADDICT CSAT, OR HIS COED 12 STEP SECRET CLUB.
That was the moment of truth when I realized I had to get out and save myself from this line up of unrepentent narcissistic abusers in order to provide for my children. I knew that I was absolutely and utterly alone after thirty years of faithful marriage, working bloody hard to get ahead, putting up with his mother who is the absolute worst person I have ever met in my entire life and i have met some real doozies in ministry, may I add, and giving him all the support for therapy over the years. I was all alone in that marriage. And I always had been.
His vows didn’t just mean nothing. They meant shit.I have to say.. great posts.. and really being on this site.. has given me such empowerment.. I read it and think.. okay, this is what I am dealing with .. my sah.. sounds just like this and to me that is empowerment.. this site was a big aha moment and the sisters posting..
My moment of truth was when my husband was gas lighting and lying to me about something relatively minor, can’t remember what…. and he said that if we were ” going to make this work”, I would have to communicate better, because my ” communication when issues came up was inflammatory. My response had been ” you are gas lighting and lying”.
That really was my moment, my husband can gaslight and lie, forms of domestic abuse, and in his opinion, I’m the one who needs to work, I need to have a better response to his abuse.
He didn’t admit it was abuse, of course.
I said how about the work that needs to be done is you stopping the abuse and then we can talk about my response to situations that aren’t abusive, if appropriate. He looked at me and seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. You can’t talk to that kind of insanity, or at least I finally realized how stupid it was to try.My moment was five days after d day, my husband began a new job. He called me on his lunch break, like he did every day that he worked before. He admitted he was struggling because he usually trolled for hookers on backpage.com on his lunch break and set up his fucks for the ride home from work. He said it like he was really struggling to not use his phone to search. At that point, I realized this is so beyond anything I can do to change the situation. It is ingrained behavior, he is not going to change. I used to think those chats n his lunch break was sweet. Now I wonder did he speak to me before or after he set up the rondevous with the prostitutes. It’s insidious what they have done. I have no good memories of much. It’s all clouded with his sa bullshit.
Diane, this is a very difficult question but a very wise one. But for me, it was finding out that he was having sex with young hookers for the ENTIRE 4 years we lived on Borneo. Thoughout my breast cancer treatment, and much more so when I found out what he was doing when my youngest son was recovering from an almost fatal heart surgery. That was the moment for me. He was shaving her in my bed and allowing her to use my toiletries. When I returned to Asia he pestered me to come to his new watering hole. Eventually, I did. His latest paramour brought me my drink. He sat there and let his whore wait on me. That was my moment. I survived but when I found that out it killed the very real love I felt for that man. To this day, he has no real idea what he did. To this day, I feel certain it was all just too much.
Me too Karen that’s really sad.
My defining moment is such a clusterfuck it’s hard for me to pick one. There were so many and all pretty close together. After d day my xh went into recovery mode for 5 mo then I found out from his sponsor he had missed 3 meetings in a row even though my xh ‘pretended’ to be going. When I confronted him he lied “of course Ive been at my meetings, where else would I be?”. Well, he finally admitted he was using his meeting time to hookup and fuck some prostitute. I realized this isn’t going to work out. A few days later I found his profile on sugar daddy for me. com looking for an 18 yr old. The title of his profile: ‘Generous Gentleman’. After I confronted him about it the locks were changed on me and he made me homeless. He threw what little I owned (because of the house fire) into 2 plastic bags and had them sitting in the yard. I went to a cheap hotel and 5 days later he served me divorce papers. The rest is history. I’ve been divorced 2 yrs now and am happy to be free from his madness.
Here are the comments that were lost in the site restore:
girliewhirlies said 1 day, 4 hours ago:
I have to say.. great posts.. and really being on this site.. has given me such empowerment.. I read it and think.. okay, this is what I am dealing with .. my sah.. sounds just like this and to me that is empowerment.. this site was a big aha moment and the sisters posting..Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of courtney courtney said 1 day ago:
My moment of truth was when my husband was gas lighting and lying to me about something relatively minor, can’t remember what…. and he said that if we were ” going to make this work”, I
would have to communicate better, because my ”communication when issues came up was inflammatory. My response had been ” you are gas lighting and lying”.That really was my moment, my husband can gaslight and lie, forms of domestic abuse, and in his opinion, I’m the one who needs to work, I need to have a better response to his abuse.
He didn’t admit it was abuse, of course. I said how about the work that needs to be done is you stopping the abuse and then we can talk about my response to situations that aren’t abusive, if appropriate. He looked at me and seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. You can’t talk to that kind of insanity, or at least I finally realized how stupid it was to try.Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of lostinthehollows lostinthehollows said 22 hours, 34 minutes ago:
My moment was five days after d day, my husband began a new job. He called me on his lunch break, like he did every day that he worked before. He admitted he was struggling because he usually trolled for hookers on backpage.com on his lunch break and set up his fucks for the ride home from work.
He said it like he was really struggling to not use his phone to search. At that point, I realized this is so beyond anything I can do to change the situation. It is ingrained behavior, he is not going to change. I used to think those chats n his lunch break was sweet. Now I wonder did he speak to me before or after he set up the rondevous with the prostitutes. It’s insidious what they have done. I have no good memories of much. It’s all clouded with his sa bullshit.Profile picture of bev bev said 22 hours, 21 minutes ago:
Yes LITH, that’s exactly it.Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of kmf kmf said 21 hours, 31 minutes ago:
Diane, this is a very difficult question but a very wise one. But for me, it was finding out that he was having sex with young hookers for the ENTIRE 4 years we lived on Borneo. Thoughout my breast cancer treatment, and much more so when I found out what he was doing when my youngest son was recovering from an almost fatal heart surgery. That was the moment for me. He was shaving her in my bed and allowing her to use my toiletries. When I returned to Asia he pestered me to come to his new watering hole. Eventually, I did. His latest paramour brought me my drink. He sat there and let his whore wait on me. That was my moment. I survived but when I found that out it killed the very real love I felt for that man. To this day, he has no real idea what he did. To this day, I feel certain it was all just too much.Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of liza liza said 19 hours, 10 minutes ago:
God, Karen, I’m so fucking sorry.Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of NAP NAP said 17 hours, 50 minutes ago:
Me too Karen that’s really sad.
My defining moment is such a clusterfuck it’s hard for me to pick one. There were so many and all pretty close together. After d day my xh went into recovery mode for 5 mo then I found out from his sponsor he had missed 3 meetings in a row even though my xh ‘pretended’ to be going. When I confronted him he lied “of course Ive been at my meetings, where else would I be?”. Well, he finally admitted he was using his meeting time to hookup and fuck some prostitute. I realized this isn’t going to work out. A few days later I found his profile on sugar daddy for me.com looking for an 18 yr old. The title of his profile: ‘Generous Gentleman’. After I confronted him about it the locks were changed on me and he made me homeless. He threw what little I owned (because of the house fire) into 2 plastic bags and had them sitting in the yard. I went to a cheap hotel and 5 days later he served me divorce papers. The rest is history. I’ve been divorced 2 yrs now and am happy to be free from his madness.Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of diane diane said 8 hours, 33 minutes ago:
The moment(s) of truth.
thank you very much for sharing. I’m remembering a post that Heidi wrote a few years ago I think—in which she talk about how she would have something like a “bottom line” of what she could take, and how it kept moving lower and lower, and she was being ground down each time, and losing part of herself.
My dream is for partners of SA’s to know how to recognize their moment of truth so that they will nolonger be ground down by the bar getting lower and lower by what SA behaviours they are supposed to continue to assimilate and “move past”.
They are entitled to have a limit. It is for their own wellbeing and their children’s wellbeing. Any therapist who doesn’t care about this, doesn’t care about you, IMO.
I care. And other sisters here care as well. That’s why we tell you what we know and what we learned and what we wish we knew…back when…
So often women throw themselves first into “helping” their SA’s, and never really get beyond that. Or, they throw themselves into “helping” their marriages, which turns out to mean the same thing. But you are entitled to have something called “a moment of truth”—-what it means is up to you, of course. But that moment of truth matters whether you stay or whether you go.
And as long as the particularities of these SA penis activities are not named correctly, the consequences to you will not be named, recognized, acknowledged or treated. And neither will his treatment go to the level of care and medication that is required for him to function.
IMO.Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of NAP NAP said 6 hours, 24 minutes ago:
Diane,
Very thought provoking post. When I think of my marriage to my xh in hindsight, even before I knew he was a promiscuous cheater, I did lower the bar and then he’d be awful and I’d lower the bar again. I didn’t see it then but I sure see it now. I now see I accepted way too much abusive behaviors including early on in the marriage the withholding of sex. Much like my mother, the guy is cruel and I lived with it and allow it for 25 yrs. Never again. Now, if someone is cruel to me, game over. I don’t want them in my life. I only want people who love, respect, and care about me as much as I do them.
The bar has risen!!!Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of LynnG lynng2 said 6 hours, 20 minutes ago:
🙂Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of march march said 6 hours, 13 minutes ago:
The bar didn’t raise itself, Nap; you raised it. Good for you.
Credit where it’s due and all…Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of lisak lisak said 6 hours, 11 minutes ago:
there were two we were touring in europe. when we stayed in amsterdam i told him if he even went near the red light district, he would have to leave. he rode through the red light district on the way to and from an SA meeting. then blamed it on me because caden and i should have gone with him. something broke for me. i panicked in the air bnb room while he went out the last night to get waffles. and was gone for over an hour.
it was hell. it was over.
the second was (you guys know this story) when he made me walk a few blocks when in pain with a broken arm, constipated from the pain medicine i could no longer take. i told him earlier that weekend i felt like killing myself (it was the 1 year anniversary of d day). he didn’t bat an eye.
o. ver.Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of LynnG lynng2 said 5 hours, 59 minutes ago:
Aches to hear these stories. I feel like I should print them, burn them in a big earthenware pot and spread the ashes somewhere they would float away til they disappeared. Or put them in earth and plant flowers over them, wildflowers like morning glories that will always follow the sun.Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of cede cede said 2 hours, 14 minutes ago:
This is an awesome post. Inspiring, sad, insightful and I thing very powerful. The post that talked about the bar lowering…. that is so true. And honestly it was already too low before I even knew about the SA stuff. Little by little.
First he started lying about money… secret loans. I found out and almost left him (about 10 years in). But I thought what is wrong with me? WHy would I leave the man of my dreams over money. It wasn’t a deal breaker … It should have been. A lie is a lie is a lie and it was a big one. One he had to cover up and did it well.Then the porn………Same thing, just porn I thought. (10 years ago) He was sleeping w/ other women then I just didn’t know it.
Then the real DDay or shall I say D Month. First porn again, then talking with a person on the phone, Then affair with one person, then mutliple affairs throughout the state. Almost left him (about 2 years ago).So you ask my moment of truth. I finally started trusting him again (Oct this year) I looked and looked and looked and nothing. Well turns out the day we left on a vacation (I paid for by the way) He drove 1 1/2 hours away to another town and met a guy and a girl for a threesome. I didn’t know. He then was “behind” in his work and I acomodated him by doing some favors to help him get ready. OK fast forward – 2 days into the vacation – he begs me for unprotected sex (we hadn’t since d day)— He said he hadn’t betrayed me again. I was his soul mate. so I agreed. Thought all this shit was behind us. He kicked it lucky me.
Nov 19th I find it. On his phone. All of it including the 3 some the day we left on vacation and the 2-3 craigslist hookups a week. Two days later the promise again and unprotected sex….that was it. I didn’t holler I woke him up and asked him to leave. I told him I knew — he still denied it. I knew this would be my life. By this time he wasn’t making any money, I have been the sole supporter for years.
Every 2 years I would find out again. It would destroy me. I needed to protect myself… physically, emotionally and I needed to protect my children. Staying in that marriage would be teaching them to abuse or to be abused.
Even at my darkest moments I know better. I cannot be his wife ever again. He will never change, and if by a small miracle he would, I can’t even settle for a man who ever had an affair. I love him in many ways but I love myself more. I can’t have me and him.Edit | Delete #
Profile picture of anniem anniem said 47 minutes ago:
It’s weird.. I don’t think my moment of truth was even all that related to his secret life.. but more realizing over the last two years that he just seems so damn young, and that isn’t likely to change no matter how old he gets. There was a moment recently where he told me he cried in front of his SA group, and after he kept harping on it, I realized he wanted some sort of praise from me about it. Like it was an outstanding breakthrough or something. I think something jelled for me then, that I was just too damn old to raise another child, and I wasn’t going to go there anymore. xoxoProfile picture of NAP NAP said 6 minutes ago:
Thanks March 🙂This forum post is very humbling and sobering to me. It’s very insightful to how heavy our burden with these men have been. One story is as sad as the next. It’s good to know we have options and we don’t have to keep living that sad life.
Lynn I liked your ideas.Edit | Delete # Viewing post 16 to 27 (27 total posts)
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