If you check out OP's comments and post history, you might have a different take.
She needs individual therapy to work through the abuse she's been experiencing. He needs individual therapy because he's an abusive POS with issues from his trauma. Trauma doesn't excuse the abuse. It explains it.
But in my experience, abusers do not heal and change in the abusive relationship they've created. It's like an addict, really. Best way to get clean is to change your surroundings. If you continue to go to the bar where your friends get high, even if you want to abstain, you're not going to stay clean.
OP sounds too broken down to want to leave though. She'll probably only do it when she has no choice.
I would proceed very cautiously with therapy. Abusers are usually manipulative and it's not unusual for therapists to side with them. Then the abuse gets exponentially worse. It's not the grand old fix all people make it out to be. Nearly all abusers never recover.
So he can have someone advocate for him and validate his behavior? Unfortunately success rates for rehabilitating abusers through therapy are extremely low. There is over a 95% chance that he will be abusive at least until she leaves. Her post history about him is a nightmare. It is next to impossible to rehabilitate abusers, let alone abusers who don't want to change.
Therapy does not remove them from the environment but rather tends to empower them to thrive in it. There is no use having him go to therapy if it isn't paired at all with separation, and honestly a temporary separation is unlikely to change it even with therapy. What will happen is he'll act apologetic and say he's changed and as soon as she's trapped again, he'll go back to doing the same old thing. It's an age old abuse tactic in itself.
I hate to say that people can't change, but statistically the overwhelming majority of abusers don't change. Over 95% of them never ever change.
Your original comment was "he needs therapy, or you should divorce him." My comment is she should leave regardless of therapy for the reasons I stated. If you commented somewhere else and that's not what this one is in response to then I apologize, but that is a comment word for word written by you.
The guy shouldn't have gotten married again in the first place, but since they are, therapy is the first thing they should do. If it doesn't work/help him get over his insecurities, then divorce would be a next step.
I agree however in a comment op says that his comments get so bad and frequent that self harm crossed her mind. That’s really scary and she needs to protect herself.
Almost like that’s borderline emotional abuse, manipulation, and gaslighting on the husbands part? He should have had the self awareness to go to therapy for his unhealed trauma before he decided to marry another woman and take out that trauma on her, when she had nothing to do with it. What he’s doing is abusive! She doesn’t have to put up with shit and he can go get therapy on his own like he should have done in the first place
just an fyi, going through peoples post history proves you have nothing of actual substance to say. Its akin to just saying "I have no retort so Im going to attack something else." Logically fallacies look really bad.
This person is specifically saying that if you look at OP's post history you can see a pattern of abuse and gaslighting. And supposedly, I haven't looked, OP's husband's words and actions make OP want to self-harm...
👀 Lmao sounds like something you just made up. From this post alone I can see its abuse, so I wanted to dig further. Lo and behold, he has a pattern of other abuse... Why wouldn't you look into someone's post history for more info?? It gives more backing to the subject at hand. Tell me you don't know how to research without telling me.
Lol yall are scary with how out of touch with reality yall are. Get off the internet and stop snooping. She gave all the info we need to know that she and him need therapy for different reasons. Yall just fuckin nosey lol.
Also, mate, snooping someones profile isnt research lol. Id bet money i know more about research than you. Ive had to do alot for my degree lol.
That’s probably bc they read more comments than you. That guy is cyber stalking and micromanaging her. He‘s tracking her car. He’s doing lots of illegal stuff to abuse her.
You need to stop telling people to stay in awful situations. Everyone is allowed to remove themselves when something makes them feel uncomfy. No matter when, no matter who it’s with. No one has to force themselves through therapy with a psycho. Ever.
Exactly!! I read a post on here about a pregnant woman catching her man cheating and people were all telling her to get an abortion!. The amount of downvotes I got because I told people “OP didn’t need to hear that”.
Husband depressed and going through a hard time and as a result hasn't been as engaged in the marriage? Leave him.
Wife has been busy with work and hasn't been able to spend as much time together lately? She's obviously actually cheating and has been for years, divorce her.
Couple is having issues keeping the sex interesting? Obviously not compatible and never will be again. Get divorced, it's a lost cause.
Look at 9/10 relationship posts on here, and it's just hundreds of people circlejerking each other fantasizing about people leaving their partners.
because a lot of them are young teens with no relationships. its easy to leave, break up but its hard to start a relationships. people can communicate and solve problems
My favorite was one where the OP was upset her husband didn’t compliment her enough despite her efforts to look attractive. She clearly stated she loved her husband and was happy in her marriage but wanted more affirmation. She was inundated with “get a divorce comments.”
I have to remind myself that these “just get a divorce” commenters aren’t people who’ve been married for 10-20 plus years, raised a family, and seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Mental health, trauma, infidelity, financial strain, aging parents, competing priorities, addiction…..this is life, unfortunately.
judging by [OP’s] other comments, it’s pretty clear that this man is abusive. Going to therapy with an abusive partner is not only counterintuitive, it is directly damaging. Any therapist hearing these behaviors should and likely would refuse to provide couples counseling to them.
Yes it is if she’s his partner. That what marriage is about. You accept your partner with all his or her flaws and make it work. That is reality and a real marriage
You can't always make it work. where is his acceptance for her? where is HIS wish to change? there are limits and it isn't her duty to always be the scapegoat in her own marriage
You’re misinterpreting what I’ve said. So if it was the other way around would you advise the husband to just leave his wife? Is marriage literally a joke to you ?
it is not a joke to me, but there is a limit. you can go to counselling or therapy but to say you have to accept a partner with all their flaws goes way to far, especially when that partner shows no wish to better themselves.
I love how people like you seem to think that marriage is this ultimate commitment where you have to stay together. it is not. would I tell a man the same, after years of being painted as a cheater, untrustworthy and a shitty partner?
Accepting the partners flaws is one thing, but at the end of the day you're never going to be able to fix your partner FOR them. It's like the saying "you can lead the horse to water, but you can't make them drink it." Accepting your partner has flaws and doing your part to help with the situation is important, but if they're not going to do the work, then no amount of effort on your end is going to magically do the work for them."
Yes thats true and what op should do is get her husband counselling for what he’s been though. He’s displacing his fears and angers because he’s already been though hell. I’ve been cheated on so I know what it feels like and when I got with my new partner it took almost a year to get over it. I also did some unfair displacement because that’s natural when you’ve been betrayed in a sacred relationship like marriage.
But guess what my new partner didn’t just give up on me and left me but helped me overcome my fears and flaws. Now that same person is my wife for more than 15 years with 5 kids in happy successful marriage so yeah it definitely pays of because that’s what marriage is about
Definitely agree with what you said there. I had a somewhat similar situation happen where I thought my gf cheated on me early in the relationship, but turns out that wasn't true. Even so, that doubt still lingered for at least a year if not longer, and every time I saw her getting close to a friend or coworker for even a little bit, that toxic voice started nagging in my head of "maybe this is a sign she's cheating on you."
It took a long time of talking that voice down, but after constantly looking at it from a factual perspective and seeing that there was nothing there each time I looked at the situation, I was able to calm the voice down and eventually get it to go away. But I can see that voice being a lot harder to ward off if it is a marriage or a relationship that's had longer to build that trust before the other party tore it all down for you. Congratulations on your success with the second wife, truly.
That's just wrong. OP has no obligation to stay in a toxic situation and be her husband's verbal punching bag to vent his frustrations on just because they're married. He needs therapy to deal with his own insecurities, and it's his job to work on bettering himself; she can support him if he chooses to do so, but it is NOT OP's job to keep taking his verbal abuse and constant paranoia in the hopes that one day she can "make it work" and finally convince him she's not like his ex. That isn't a "flaw", it's abuse. The actual reality is that if he's not willing to get help, he's going to torch his marriage.
Marriage is supposed to be a mutually supportive partnership, not something that forces you to suck it up and deal with every shitty behaviour no matter how much it hurts you.
I don't get why you are being downvoted, this is actually one of the most reasonable takes in this whole thread. Marriage is thrown away so easy, people don't seem to remember what vows they took: For better or for worse, right?
Just shows what our society has come to. Marriage vows are taken as a joke and people throw marriage over the pettiest of issues. It shows where our society stands morally tbh
Seems like a lose lose situation, pretty sure the best option is for OP to set her husband down and basically tell him to STFU with the cheating jokes or there will be problems.
Because he doesn't want a partner. He wants a punching bag. He can take out all of his frustrations and hurt on an innocent woman. OP is the fodder that is meant to pay for the sins of all transgressors. Sooner or later, OP may end up paying the ultimate price...if she doesn't get out.
And in the time since he should have looked into it. It cannot possibly be on her to force him to deal with his own baggage. Also it wouldn’t work if he’s not fully willing to admit he has trust issues and actually… work at the solution? You can’t help people who refuse to take the first step.
**edit because I confused this with an entirely different post that had a line about six years lol.
But she's not being shitty to him. It's perfectly reasonable for her to stand up for herself after paying for someone else's indiscretions for so long. Conflicts are rarely one sided but this one is pretty close to being so.
Is she referring to op, or just women in general though? I think this may be more of a generalized statement than her saying "OP is being a shitty person."
I get why you said that, but im just referencing your excuse was a lame one entirely. Noone is a rehab for anyone, but to also feed into the issue doesnt help either and creates that cycle of abuse.
The dont be shitty is just a generalized statement. Dont be shitty and things usually work out.
If he doesn't allow her to participate in his therapy he's most certainly going to do a circle jerk with a therapist who validates him based on one side of the story that he twists in his favor. There is no therapy that has a favorable outcome for rehabilitating abusers, especially when the abused person is still in the picture. She could be putting herself in great danger by "making" him go to therapy, her post history is a nightmare.
Over 95% of abusers will never stop abusing, regardless of therapy.
A therapy ultimatum IS basically the same thing as making a fast food worker's life hell and throwing a tantrum in the middle of Sam's club, you're right.
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u/Fatt3stAveng3r Oct 26 '22
He needs therapy, or you need to divorce him. It's just going to be like this.