Breaking marriage with RTR. Single mom childhood and cheating.

[aleles]

Hi everyone. I'd like to share my story to get some help understanding roots of my problems and ways to improve.My parents divorced when I was 3 and I spent my childhood with my mom. I never asked much about what happened, I think I was a little bit afraid to ask, but I'm catching up now. My parents live in Russia and I will go there soon to talk in person. My mom said that my father didn't want to spend time with me. He said that he'll do the "knowledge transfer" when I get older and until then it's my mom's job to take care of me. He has been married 4 times and has 3 children, all from different wives. I am his first one. My mom is always bitter speaking about my father calling him stingy. He showed up a few months after the divorce in the middle of a hot summer and took the fridge that he bought before the marriage. It was really difficult to buy major household items like a fridge or furniture in the Soviet Union. You had to know someone or get on the waiting list which was booked months and months ahead.I remember having lots of fun playing with my mom. She would go far and beyond as we dug and crawl snow tunnels and did other fun active things. We didn't have much money, so she had to work a second job at night cleaning streets, which I enjoyed helping her doing especially shoveling snow in winter time. My mom had another relationship when I was in middle school. We had good time with the guy once in a while, but he had drinking periods. It got worse over a few years and he ended up beating my mom and leaving. She got married again about 15 years later and she and her new husband look happy now.I don't remember much aggression in my childhood. I was spanked a couple of times and yelled at rarely. Although, I did have to stand in a corner quite a few times "to think about my behavior" which typically lasted 10-15 minutes until I gathered enough courage to go to my mom and apologize which always felt humiliating. Hugging, kissing, saying "I love you" was mostly missing from our relationship. My grandparents who I had a good time with didn't express love to each other neither. I remember feeling anxiety about touching someone even as a social interaction all the way till my first romantic relationships that I think fixed it. I still feel unease to say "I love you".My romantic relationships seem all follow the same pattern. I fall in love and I'm really passionate during this initial period that lasts for a few months. Then it cools down and I just go with it. I don't feel like maintaining exclusivity is necessary or desirable. My hypocrisy is that I wouldn't offer my girlfriend polyamory, I would just secretly cheat on her. In my inner dialog I would excuse it as a form of self pleasure without the moral context, lying somewhere in between of playing sports and jacking off.I got married 6 years ago and this relationship repeated the pattern. I think it lasted that long because we spent lots of time being long distance due to visa regulations for studying/working abroad. We would see each other rarely, but every time we meet was fresh and exciting after several months of separation. During the periods we lived together we enjoyed doing things, but we would also argue often. A few times I thought about ending the relationship. I was selfish, hypocritical, and tried to dominate her. She wanted me to be more open and share my feelings, but I didn't know how. She was getting older and wanted kids. Something scared me in that idea. It could be the responsibility, uncertainty in our visa situation or lack of a deep and meaningful relationship. She asked me several times and I would simply say I am not ready for kids yet. We tortured each other. I kept dragging the relationship, she would poison it with frustration. When we were apart I sometimes had sex or short relationships with random girls. When she moved to the US she left everything behind to be with me, career, friends, family. I feel so much pain writing how I treated her.About a year ago I found FDR and it changed my life. After months of listening I started applying RTR. First time when I wanted to tell my wife what I feel at the moment when we were arguing, I got so anxious, I couldn't speak. When I eventually told her, she got it right away. She expressed sympathy with me, we stopped arguing and started exploring our feelings. It's been a few months and we have never argued since then, except for one heated argument about philosophy that we resolved speaking what we felt. It has been the greatest time in my life! We spent hours and days cuddling and talking about all things in the world catching up on 8 years of emptiness. Then it struck me, I have to tell her about my past cheating. I felt terrified and I couldn't share my fear with her. At first I wanted to forget the past and enjoy the new life, but I couldn't. It started bothering me more and more. I became bitter inside and started attacking every antirational post on facebook. The past weekend we had a lovely time together biking and chatting about philosophy, it was the last drop. I was so much in love and wanting children, but this black hole was sucking me from inside. I told her that I have a dark secret and I can't live any longer not being completely honest with her. The fear paralyzed me and I couldn't say a word for a while, she looked at me and guessed it "You have another woman". "I had several" I replied. She broke down in tears and pain.She wants to divorce. "You are a monster that builds trust and hits right in the core. You don't have emotions. A lost unhappy person. I don't believe you can change, you are running your RTR experiment on me." she cried. I don't know now if she really understood the philosophy we talked about last few months or she just went along asking questions. I haven't seen her for a few days since.What's wrong with me? Do I lack an ability to bond? Did I not have an example of a true romantic relationship? Was the pain worth the truth? Could or should this marriage be saved?

[Duderio]

goodbye

[Ovi]

Also tell me if there is a part in RTR where Stef is all like "yeah it's ok to lie about important things in a relationship, as long as you can express your feelings".

 

@Thomas: what I understood from the OP was that he found FDR and learn about RTR after he did all the cheating. I think you are assuming that after learning about RTR he continued to cheat. I do not see where he says that in his post, he doesn't state it clearly either way, though he does refer to it as "my past cheating" which would imply it was no longer happening.

So, only if he continued to cheat after the RTR turning point are your criticisms valid. Maybe you read a bit too hastily. 

 

I think that quite the opposite is going on from what you are saying: I think he is owning his mistakes as he does recognize the hypocrisy of his past double standard (he is saying: "I was selfish, hypocritical")  and really wanted to start clean, which is the whole reason he told her about the past in the first place! 

 

@aleles: i will try to address each question in turn

 

1. what's wrong with you? - I'm assuming you are asking based on the information you are conveying in your post. I can only answer what is wrong with your actions, and right now i can find no wrong with them: you have applied the principles of RTR and that is a good thing indeed. All the problems you are having stem not from your recent actions but from your past ones, but you seem to already know that. So there is not much I can say here.

 

2. Do you lack an ability to bond? - clearly not. It was clearly impaired in the past in some manner and it might still probably be, but it is definitely not lacking because you wrote about how wonderful your relationship with your wife had become after applying RTR, right up to the moment where you disclosed your past transgressions.

 

3. Did I not have an example of a true romantic relationship [when growing up]? - i dislike the term "romantic" for it's distorted connotations, but again, it's pretty obvious from what you wrote that the answer is no, you did not. You made that clear in your post.

 

4. Was the pain worth the truth? - come on, this is an easy one. YES always, the truth is the most important thing we can strive for, that's what philosophy is all about! And to get to the truth, there is often going to be some level of discomfort. But there can be no lasting true happiness and prosperity without truth, so the discomfort is justified.

 

5. Could or should this marriage be saved?

 

First the "could":

People who are married for 6 years with somebody and living with them and claim to not know about any of the long string of infidelities that the other partner has committed are lying to themselves and/or others. It's very possible that she knew what was going on but could only tolerate it as a "known secret" and maybe was in denial consciously while subconsciously she was aware of the situation. If you are at the state where you cannot tell if your partner is cheating on you after 6 years then you have bigger relationship issues than them cheating on you (clear lack of communication, empathy and knowledge about the other person).

 

I am not making excuses for you own past behavior, I am trying to say that getting back together might not be possible because this outcome was the one she was aiming for subconsciously all along. Most people pick and choose their partners based on a set of criteria they are not consciously aware of, which in turn stem from their childhood (if you are familiar with Transactional Analysis, this is part of their "life script" that we create for ourselves and then try to play out all throughout our lives).

 

You obviously need to have a talk with her.

• It might be that this is a milestone in her script, and without dismantling said script there is no way she would change her mind (and that is something only she can do, you can't do it for her). 
• it might be that she wants to work things out, in which case, keep applying RTR!

As for the "should" part: there is no "should". You may chose to or not, no one can answer that for you. It's your own decision to make. 

[Duderio]

goodbye

[aleles]

Thank you guys. Thank you Thomas for the direct response. I really needed someone to name the things their names. "Cold-hearted manipulative bastard" this is exactly how my wife called me. I shared the story with a few people and no one told me that I'm just an asshole. Our moms spoke on the phone and her mom said Hi to me! WTF?! I was expecting an outrage similar to what my wife experienced.

 

Here's an update. Since she left we sent each other a few texts and she came a few days later right before my flight overseas to get the key. I apologized again for everything I did to her. She said that people don't change and I'm just manipulating her. As she was leaving all in pain, I really wanted to comfort her, so I ran after and hugged her. We stood and cried in the rain. She also sent me a link to the call in show "Intoxicated Infidelity" Thomas mentioned (see below). It's very relevant to our story and we discussed it with her. She has the intellectual and emotional maturity to be able to separate my assholery from philosophy. However, before I told her everything, she said that she is afraid of the "new" me and she doesn't know where this philosophy will lead me next. Maybe I will decide that polyamory is the way to go or I will separate from almost all of our friends and relatives since many of them likely won't accept anarcho-capitalism, atheism etc.

 

Ovi, I agree that we had bigger issues in the relationship. A few times when we were arguing about some minor things I felt really annoyed and thought why I am still in this relationship. Quoting the above call in show, she was the enabler and I did what I could get away with.

 

Thomas, you said that when I discovered RTR I should have told her everything about my past and betrayal right away. I know I'm biased in this discussion, but here are my thoughts on this. Since not many people knew about RTR before we have to start from a no RTR position. I think overwhelming majority of people have some secrets even in the closest relationships. Here's a metaphor. Imagine you found a DIY drug on the Internet that says it will make your skin look amazing. Even if the ingredients and the recipe make perfect sense (what can be wrong with full honesty) it's still scary, so you try it on a small area of your skin first. How should the switch from no RTR to RTR take place?  Is it even possible to go full RTR at once? Should you talk to all people you have close relationships with and tell them all your secrets?

 

There is a couple of things I really wanted to get some feedback too.

1) Thomas mentioned multiple times how our parents screwed us up. Can you please help identify the childhood traumas that formed those behavioral patterns in me and my wife like cheating, ignoring cheating signs etc?

2) I have a strange visual perception of my wife. This happened in my previous relationships too. Sometimes she would look really attractive. Other times I would unconsciously try to find and focus on any visual imperfection in her body I can find and that would bother me. Maybe this should be a separate topic.

 

[Duderio]

goodbye