Intrusive thoughts.

I was lucky. Her husband recited the content of my husband's and his wife's chats and photos. I knew enough details to justify the depth and agony of betrayal I was feeling. I do not believe my husband would have told me enough, nor do I believe he would have taken responsibility. 

So getting that knowledge, riding the waves of nausea with the only other person in this world who really understood, was very important to me. 

And it means my 'flashbacks' the sudden, overwhelming visual image of them together, or of moments when my husband was particularly cold and cruel are pretty accurate.

I am assuming they occur because my brain is trying to defrag. I'm seeing an automatic process that should run in the background suddenly brought up to the status of emergency because of the content. Each image is a severe threat to my emotional well-being, and over and over again I try to walk through it, push it down, or simply hide away to sit by myself out of fear. Fear that if I say anymore about it, he will dismiss me, discount my pain or flood with shame and guilt then blame me.

By now, and it is only within the last hour, I've understood that I do not have to take care of him anymore. He brought this horrible thing into our home, our relationship. He is the one who has harmed me. 

He has said he wishes to make it good, to stay married to me... So I have said to him there can be no debate anymore about how upset I am. I am this badly hurt and he is responsible. He has to be strong for me. Then I will heal and it will be his turn to say how hurt he is. Until then, witnessing my pain is the real consequences of betrayal.

He accepted this. But I know 'last year's man' the ultra male, inarticulate, belittling and cold man is still there. It leaked out in comments about a video I asked him to watch that explains how to avoid doing more harm to the betrayed partner. He watched it, tried the listening technique and I felt safe and relaxed for the first time in a year. But later, the disparaging and ignorant voice came back, saying that men who accept what a partner is saying (in the light of how hurt that partner is, and how incapable at that moment of rational thought) men like that are soft and stupid....

He apologised later for those comments... But nevertheless, last year's man is still around.