Are mind-blowing and baffling.

Maybe you betrayed feel as I do.

For our unfaithful to have one iota of resentment, expectation or entitlement to any marital benefits after THEY have chosen to break the marriage vows and de facto abandon the marriage is the stuff of crazy making insanity.

In my case, my UH told himself he was entitled to more sex during a dry spell when our kids were 2 and 5 years old. ENTITLED!! If that was not baffling enough, he actively worked to coerce and shame me into sexual performance WITHOUT emotional investment on his part AND while he was actively sexually betraying our marriage.

I’ve used this example before: We went to a Catholic marriage retreat for a number of years each spring. It was similar to marriage encounter. We were given questions to write about and then share. He abandoned no opportunity to write about his ardent wishes for me to be more ‘intimate’ (in his mind, and much of our cultures minds, that meant sex) He would often ask me why I wasn’t, to which I responded “I truly do not know. I am just not feeling it”.

Well duh…..no wonder I wasn’t feeling it. He had abandoned our marriage emotionally and sexually. I couldn’t get him to engage. No one can force another to engage. I could only request. Requests that fell on deaf ears…as he probably felt his requests for more sex did. Thing is most women, myself included, have to feel emotionally connected to a man before entrusting him with their body. Me too.

I did not feel emotionally connected and therefore not emotionally VALUED. I could not perform like a trained circus animal. I needed connection.

Pice de resistance? He stood up with all the other retreat couples, as part of the vow renewal at retreat’s end—held my hands and looked me in the eyes while repeating wedding vows—knowing he was actively sexual with his affair partner. Arrogance? Entitlement? Manipulation? Lies? Insanity.

For him or any unfaithful to EXPECT sex with their betrayed spouse is ludicrous and in fact requiring them to have sex UNINFORMED (non consensually) is a crime. In other circumstances many would define non consensual or uninformed sex as rape.

No wonder I was shut down most of the time. I did not have the ingredients of emotional engagement, trust and support that I needed to feel sexual.

And he EXPECTED me to be sexual. Not only that, he resented me for not being more sexual. Resented and blamed. He blamed me for purposely withholding sex and abandoning HIM.

Sick, sick, sick destructive and unfair thinking.

But isn’t that the hallmark of an addict?

Yes.

Completely baffling to a healthier person.

The arrogance and the entitlement are baffling and in fact the very cause of the reduced libido of the betrayed. That and the NORMAL exhaustion of an over burdened with responsibility young mother AND/OR a woman going through peri-menopausal hell. Normal seasons of life that a healthy man would undertake to help mitigate through emotional and physical support garnished with a huge serving of compassion, empathy and understanding.

But my UH was not healthy. He was arrogant and entitled. Arrogant, entitled and a consummate liar.

I hate addiction. I hate being used, duped and controlled for years. I hate being judged as somehow defective or vengeful through intentional sexual control. I hate being misjudged and betrayed because of it. I hate being in this non-marriage place. This place where a marriage contract sits in the legal vaults, yet I have not been honored as a wife. I hate it.