Carolyn Hax: After infidelity, boyfriend retaliates with abusive behavior
Q: I made the horrible mistake of developing a relationship with a parent of one of my child’s friends that ultimately led to me cheating on my boyfriend of two years. The affair lasted about two months. My boyfriend found out and confronted me about two months ago, at which point I owned up to it, albeit after much resistance and hedging on my part.
The affair is over because my affair partner broke up with me upon finding out I had not broken up with my boyfriend as he had demanded.
I want very much to repair things with my boyfriend. This whole experience has shown me how artificial the affair was and how I was willing to throw away my relationship for what was ultimately a facade.
The past two months have been hell — being insulted and called horrible names, constant sarcasm, throwing things I’ve said back in my face, refusal to hear my apologies, etc. My boyfriend has since started dating other people after telling me he’s going to do to me what I did to him: try other people out.
How long do I keep fighting to fix this and make amends? At this point, I just agree with everything he says about the affair, even if it’s not true, just to avoid another daily argument.
My hope is almost gone, I’m defeated, and he seems to take joy in being mean and hurtful toward me.
Do I cut my losses? When I ask him if he even wants to try to repair this, he flips the question back on me.
— “I’m so sorry, but please stop beating me up”
A: Get out, get out, get out.
Obviously, you are not an innocent here, having not only betrayed your boyfriend but also stayed as long as your paramour would have you. You have your own work to do on what kind of person you want to be and life you want to live.
Do this work, however, with your boyfriend safely out of your life. He is abusing you, and there is nothing you can do to a person that gives him permission to abuse you. Nothing justifies or excuses it. Not even cheating on him. Not even cheating on him and liking it. Nothing. No pain he is in makes it OK for him to inflict deliberate pain in return.
A person of character who is too angry to be civil will break up with you. That’s it. So he is not a person of character. Again, your not having behaved as one yourself doesn’t mean you deserve to be abused. There’s no stick-around-and-torture-you loophole here.
Look at your language, though — you’re all but writing him one. I’ll write your story back to you, but with the subject edited in where it belongs:
*Your boyfriend* is insulting you and calling you horrible names, using constant sarcasm, throwing things back in your face, refusing to hear your apologies. He is doing this, to you, on purpose, to watch you suffer.
And now he’s revenge cheating? I hope he gets help for his control issues before he causes serious, lasting harm.
But I’m talking to you, so, for you: Get out (carefully — danger spikes when you leave, see thehotline.org). Then get help exploring your choices so you can start making better ones. Sure, maybe your “horrible mistake” and his startling capacity for abuse were just lightning strikes. I think you’ll get more out of it, though, if you treat them as the outputs from a sequence of unhealthy inputs that you can learn never to take part in again.
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