A
male
age
41-50,
*24R
writes:I have, like most men, some serious Retroactive Jealousy issues. I also have struggled with temper problems in the past. I have been able to control these things for the better part of the last 10 years. Recently, my wife of 7 years and I were on vacation with 5 other couples. One wife on the trip is my wife's best friend of the past 15 years. I know that whenever the two of them are together, her past relationships come up (especially with some alchohol involved). I was prepared to let things pass as I usually do. I wasn't ready for what happened this time though.Over the course of 3 days I heard things I had never heard before. I obsessed and couldn't stop thinking about it. Every minute she didn't spend with me just made it worse. I got very drunk the last night on the trip and was the last one awake. I was in a very bad place, so I did what I usually do to get my mind back to a good place and I wrote out all of my feelings and then burned the paper. I felt better and went to lay down. After that, the details are a little fuzzy, but my wife came to talk with me. Somehow the conversation turned to her past. I was relentless with my questioning when it came to a certain past boyfriend. What I found out is that she had lied to me about him. She had defended him to me before and swore to me that the only dated and never had sex. I totally lost it when she told me that they had sex multiple times, but she never loved him, she just did it because of who he was (unimportantly, a pro baseball player). To top that off she told me that she really didn't know who she had sex with and that it was at least 3 times as many guys as I had known it was for the past 8 years. Iin that moment, I thought that our entire relationship had been a lie. I said some very terrible things and exhibited some very scary behavior. I did not hurt her physically, but I verbally degraded her to a point I am ashamed of. I did all of this in front of 10 other people besides my wife, since I woke everyone else up. By the next morning, my wife had convinced herself that I am the only one who did anything wrong. I have accepted and owned my poor behavior, sent apology letters to everyone who was there and began seeking help for anger management. I have even stopped drinking at all. She won't own any part of it as her fault. She will not talk to me about it or let me be near her. She says that all she can think of around me is what I did. I have already owned my behavior, so why won't she. I am willing to let her past be just that, the past, but there are a lot of unresolved issues we need to work through for us to be happy. My questions are as follows: What should I do to earn her trust back so we can resolve the issues of her lying to me? How likely is it that there is a lot more that I don't know? How can I totally trust her again? Should we talk about it alone or with a professional? Any advice on this would be great. Thanks.W
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (16 August 2010):
Im glad things are working out.
Me, I think you are being too much of a pushover about this. I would not even be talking to her if she was not really sorry about lying. That is where this started.
A
male
reader, W24R +, writes (16 August 2010):
W24R is verified as being by the original poster of the questionJust wanted to give all of you who have offered advice an update. We tried to talk things out this weekend a couple of times, but it got a little too heated. I let her know I am totally commited to working things out. I told her exactly why I was hurt and she acknowledged that it sucks. She did not apologize though, only acknowledged that she hurt me. I will see my therapist again tomorrow, but you guys have really helped me by allowing me to see that I am not alone in the way I felt or being in a situation like this. I really believe we are going to come out of this stronger than we were before. I have some things about me to change, but I'm already on the path. Don't get me wrong, I still have to work hard to keep me in check and keep my mind from going to a dark place, but I am aware and so far so good. Not saying that if I saw a certain person from her past I wouldn't punch him in the face, but I can love her more now and put all of this behind us. She is actually willing to let me come to bed tonight, so no more couch treatment. Thank you all and I will keep you posted on what comes in the future.
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A
male
reader, Yos  +, writes (15 August 2010):
 Yes liveit, you are right that she was dishonest.
I have learned however that in this matter the 'truth' is very different between the sexes.
Men focus on facts, numbers, specific events.
Women focus on emotions, times in their lives, and how they were feeling about themselves at the time.
These are very different. Each is the 'truth', but each is seen very differently. Women will remember their past in a very different way to the way men will interrogate them about it. The answers women give in this situation often 'change' and are unsatisfactory not because they are being dishonest, but because they are describing the 'truth' as it is to them. They are simply not focussed on 'facts' and numbers.
With retroactive jealousy men try to force their meaning of 'truth' on the woman. Something most women cannot really respond to because of this difference.
Having said that, dishonesty does happen too.
But is that so surprising?
In a world where so many men are judgmental of women's pasts, is it not to be expected that many women downplay their sexual history? Whose fault is this... the women who lower their 'number', or the judgmental men who force them to by making it clear they will punish them if they are truthful?
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A
male
reader, liveit +, writes (14 August 2010):
Yos your posts on RJ are tremendously insightful and very helpful but in this case I have to respectfully disagree on one small issue. The OP is not asking his wife to apologize for her past, he's asking her to own the fact that she kept this information from him all these years and then sprung this news on him in an especially insensitive and untimely manner. I suffer from this terrible affliction myself and one (of many) issue for me was the 'loss' of the first years of our relationship (some would say its foundation) including our courtship and wedding day because all those years she was aware of her reality whereas I feel like I was an 'unknowing fool'. Yes, I recognize that I created an idealized illusion in my wife that never really existed but she played her part through her omission in allowing that to happen. In my mind, our first ten years were completely corrupted by this newly disclosed information and I grieved tremendously over the 'loss' of those ten years. Yes, this is ultimately the OP's issue but his wife should at the very least own up to the fact that she kept this from him and allowed him to create in her a person that never really existed. She should have been forthright from the beginning not 7 years later and she owes him an apology for her duplicity. With that said, I do agree wholeheartedly that she owes no apology for her past itself.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (14 August 2010): She can't lie to you about her past and then demand that you just accept the truth when she corrects later. You are responsible for accepting whatever information you are presented with from the beginning, not what she changes the story to be several years later. I know people will say "Okay she lied but so what? The only thing that matters now is that you must accept her. She has the right to be respected by her husband." When only 1 partner really has to play fair then only 1 partner is really being respected. By lying, SHE was showing no respect for YOU all this time. You have been dealt serious emotional hurt and embarassment because of it. And frankly I think your brief outburst at unexpected news (and supsequent apologies) is more understandable than her calculating lying the whole time she has known you.
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A
male
reader, W24R +, writes (14 August 2010):
W24R is verified as being by the original poster of the questionOK anonymous for the record if you read more than the auto generated title you would know that I understand the concept of trust, so you my friend can piss off. Yos, I have read a lot of your post and feel I need to add this. Her past is her past. I might not like it but I can accept it and move forward from it. I am beyond that. She does have something to own though and that is the fact that she decieved me. She told me a bold faced lie and she must own the fact that I have a reason to have lost some trust and respect for her. I am not saying I am perfect, but I do own my behaviors and my past mistakes and she is well aware of anytime I have messed up. What I want to know though is why tell me the truth after 8 years of lying to me? Especially in the altered state I was in. Did she do this so she could get it off her chest and have an excuse to be angry at me for my poor reaction? We have always been very honest with each other, so I thought, and now I can't help but question everything she has ever said that might not have seemed to quite add up.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (14 August 2010): On high level,
i some time think that
Has the easy access to women and men for relationships and so many relationship baggage every person carries here, are more a problem than solutions to society. ?
Some times i feel that we would have been lot happier if there was no ex factor, no extra marital, no step kids and no step dad and step mom issues to deal in society as a whole.
But given than it is now what it is..
In modern values, past relationships need to be forgiven and future ones to be avoided by all means is the only way to further reduce the pains and sufferings in society.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (14 August 2010): What is it with people constantly wanting to MAKE people trust them? Do you not get how trust works?
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (14 August 2010): To be completely honest, most of the time I try to stress how important it is to forgive the other partner and let go of any feelings of jealousy. In your case, you were together for 7 years and she couldn't be honest and open about her past in that whole time, so you have every right to feel deceived and hurt, and venting your frustration about her in front of the 10 or so others was no worse than her blabbing to her best friend about the past she never confided in you about.
She showed more closeness in her friend than in you, by doing that, and you have every right to vent.. and it was healthy that you did it right away instead of holding it in and making things worse. Anytime you have any strong feelings building, good or bad, it's good to let them out.
For that reason, being this will bother you for quite awhile, whether you're with her or not in the future, I would seek counselling for yourself. As far as she is concerned, I would kick her out until she owns up to being the instigator by spilling such unknown past events to her friend(s) in that type of group environment. What did she expect to happen..? She knew it would turn out something like that, and she thought she'd get some of these other couples on your vacation on her side. That's very low of her, and she can't expect anything better for a reaction, or a delayed reaction from you.
First of all, she knows she's guilty and ashamed of what she did when she told her friend(s), so she's deflecting the brunt of her guilt and actions on you, hoping you look like "the bad one", knowing it would otherwise fall on her. That's very selfish of her to try to save her own face by basking in the fact that she feels encouraged and supported by those friends who heard you vent on her. That's why she's playing the mind game of trying to make you feel guilty for that.
She'd rather play that card than truely show love and respect to you by owning up to her actions, along with the fact she couldn't come clean about her past in seven years of being with you. That's horrible, and you have to remember that every second of the day that you feel you owe her something, or that you're in the wrong. She knows the real story, and she has to accept the truth and apologize to you.. not you to her..
Secondly, write a letter explaining how you felt about her lying to you after all these years about her past, and how it made you feel when she spouted to her friends while drinking, instead of talking maturely to you while sober, about the past. Instead of burning it like you've done in the past, read it to her aloud when you're truely alone together, and make sure it includes how she needs to not only apologize before you'll move on together with her, but how you expect her to be nothing but honest and open(confiding) in the future. When you're done reading it, burn it as usual and don't be afraid of what she does or doesn't do as a result. If she can't respect your wishes and own up to her lack of trust in you, in her actions, then she won't be worth the time in the future. She'll only lie and hide more events and actions from you..
Only if she shows admittance and remorse, would it be a good idea to ever trust her enough to carry on a future relationship with her. She'll try working on your strong feelings of wanting things to work out, so you have to make sure she can't play that game with you. Don't let her twist things on you because of your initial reaction, and make it clear how in actuality it's she who dishonored you, and needs to find ways on her own, to earn the trust back that you lost in her. Stand your ground, and don't let her make you out to be bad, like she's trying to do so far, to cover up for the main mistake made, which is undeniably hers.
As it stands, until she starts to show loyalty to you over her friends, in her actions and words, I wouldn't go together to counselling with her. Go for yourself, alone, and let her find her own counsellor, since she's making the choice to work alone, in maintaining her reputation. She has to realize that you can't go to counselling together and make things work if she's unwilling to work together in real life, and in your real relationship. She has to be willing to apply what the counsellor can give, and she won't be able to until she wants to be more interested in what you think and feel than what her friends think and feel.
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A
male
reader, Yos +, writes (14 August 2010):
I first want to say well done for taking the steps that you have. I know how incredibly difficult retroactive jealousy can be.
However I think you have a new step to take that strongly relates to what is going on now. It is also a key step that will help you not just manage your problem, but help you try to be rid of it.
What you say here is key:
"She won't own any part of it as her fault. She will not talk to me about it or let me be near her."
I have been giving advice to people with retroactive jealousy for several years. And also to their partners. To their partners I always tell them to do exactly what your wife is now doing: to not accept any blame on themselves, and to refuse to talk about further details. I hate to say this, but I believe your wife is now doing the right thing.
This is very confronting for you, but necessary.
Your wife does not owe you an apology for her past, before she was with you. She did not do anything wrong then. Because of this she has nothing to be forgiven for, and nothing to apologise for. If you cling to the idea that she is at fault, then you are clinging to something that will keep feeding your jealousy: namely that she was in the wrong.
She has no part of this she has to "own". This is for you to own, in its entirety.
To be free of your negative emotions you have to change your beliefs at a fundamental level. You have to become a new person: a person that believes that your wife's past is fine. That there is nothing wrong with it.
That doesn't mean you have to like it! Of course the thought of the woman you love with any other man is going to be unpleasant. That's true for all of us. What you have to do is disconnect the dark emotions around those images from the judgement that she did a bad thing, that she is to blame for something.
In fact here is no one to blame here. There is no one to forgive.
There is just a dark cloud of emotions that you experience that have to be accepted for what they are: just emotions. Accept them, feel them, let them wash over you. But don't start attributing meaning to them. Don't drag them back over and over whilst you analyse them and try to attribute labels and meaning.
Think of it like hunger. Hunger is just a feeling, you don't look for someone to blame for your hunger, or wonder why you are hungry. You just take steps to deal with it, ie eat. Same here: when you get those emotions, take the steps you need to to deal with them, but don't look for someone to blame, or for the cause. Those things have to become meaningless to you, they have to become irrelevant. You can choose to become a different person, the person who believes those things to be unimportant. When you become that person, you will be free of your retroactive jealousy.
I suggest you read my post here also, which talks a bit more about this:
http://www.dearcupid.org/question/retroactive-jealousy--how-do-i-overcome-it.html
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A
male
reader, Cerberus_Raphael  +, writes (14 August 2010):
 I am about to give you my advice to the best of my abilities but, I can't do that well given that I don't know exactly what you said to her.
If you've already apologized to her, then perhaps you both should just sit down first and talk about what it is you're both bothered by. I can't be sure because I don't know either of you but, my guess is that your wife is probably hurt by some of the things you said. Never degrade your wife. Especially in front of ten other people. It's hurtful and she might still be embarrassed by it because, you've gone and shown the more darker side of your relationship to her close friends who were around at the time.
Apologize to her and ask her why she thinks it is your fault. Calmly. I think it is good you are seeking anger management. The role of a husband is to be supportive to his wife, to be there for her. She is supposed to feel safe with you. I think she was trying to be honest with you and you made her feel like she couldn't be because of your reaction.
If she says that all she can think of is what you did that night, then suggest that you two sit down and talk about what you did, how she feels about it.
I hope that helps.
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