My H's words after DDay: You showed me the abyss and I didn't like it

Speechless is a word that perfectly describes my husband's reaction seven months ago when I played him the recording of the telephone conversation he had with his affair partner. It was definite proof that there was a long term connection between them on several fronts: personal, professional and sexual.

He had been gaslighting me for over a year before this glorious DDay. The glory I felt to know that I was not out of my mind nor imagining things and that my gut feeling was absolutely spot on. He was so shocked that when I played the recording he said: "That is not me". He wished I never caught him red-handed. He thought he could get away with the disconnection and the absentmindedness plus already the clear lack of interest in me that had been eroding my peace for far too long.

That same night, after a few hours from the initial shock, my unfaithful husband said: “You’ve shown me the abyss and I don’t want to fall in it. I will do anything to save this marriage, please help me”. 

I knew these were promising words. They conveyed several messages. he had realised how much he had to lose and he was willing to work not to let that happen. And, above all, he wanted my help. That attitude can be the beginning of the path to recovery from infidelity.

My first request was for him to call his affair partner right there and then and let her know that it was over. He said he would do it the next day. I did not know then that she was a married woman. Not at any point during the months that preceded D-Day did I consider the possibility that the woman who was keeping my husband distracted could be married.

Only moments after asking for help to save our marriage he was already refusing to take the basic initial steps to rebuild trust. He did not offer any explanation and my frustration escalated into a tantrum triggered by his insistence that what he had was not an “affair”.

I couldn’t understand how he could insist on not wanting to label that connection made obvious in my recording as an “affair”. He would only show half the picture to me. He would admit that there were orgasms but that they never went into a private room. He insisted that it was more of a “sexting” connection. I reminded him that what I heard was real while she was in her room. He insisted: “Still, it was not an affair”.

He might have meant that it wasn’t the conventional affair depicted in the soap operas while we were growing up. That doesn’t make it less of a betraying act. His insisting on removing the label “affair” off this connection I had just brought out with unequivocal evidence, made me lose control.

I had a tantrum opposing his view. It went along the lines of “How can it not be an affair when you ________________?”. I just repeated this sentence a few times with highlights of the types of connection that were evident from the recording. Some of them were “talk about work and family activities”, “make sure that you gave her pleasure in bed, guiding her while she masturbated”, “fill her with compliments about her appearance” and “asking her to organise work-related activities so you could have an excuse to be together”.

After the second question to which he would reply by moving his head left to right in disapproval of the label “affair”, I started punching him as I filled in the blank of the above question with all the examples that golden recording had provided me with.

This was the end of my contact with him on that day. It was very sad how I ended up panting and crying in despair, with a sore throat from all the hard work to get through his denial fence. It was enough. I knew he had gotten the message. The next day would be the first day of my new life after betrayal.