Telling the Truth Makes Him Mad

The first time I told the truth, I hadn’t even planned on it. I also didn’t tell the whole truth. I told a gentler version that would make him look better than the actual truth.

In the middle of an argument about his infidelity, my husband yelled at me for kicking him out of the bedroom the previous night. It makes him feel like a second-class citizen in his own home. He started taking my things out of the bedroom and telling me I could sleep somewhere else.

“I’ll sleep at your parents’,” I said, dialing his mom’s number.

“No, don’t do that!”

“I don’t want to stay where I’m not wanted, and with my neuromuscular stuff, I can’t sleep on the couch. I’ll be back in the morning.”

I left and went to his parents’ house. His mom set me up in the guest room and then asked me what was going on. I lost it and dissolved into tears.

But I still wanted to protect him. So, I told her a sugar-coated version. He’d cheated; it had been casual, he said he was stopping.

If I had been as fucking done as I am today, I’d have unloaded the actual truth.

My husband has a thing for prostitutes. He’s seen at least six since we’ve been married. Based on his behavior when I asked if there was more that I didn’t know about, however, I’m guessing the answer is yes, lots more.

Here’s the thing: I don’t actually have a problem with sex work or sex workers. I do, however, have a problem with human trafficking and with men who see prostitutes and thereby reinforce the actions of said traffickers. I also have a problem with sex work being illegal where we live and the impact an arrest could have on our marriage, our family, and our stability.

I didn’t tell his mom any of this. I was protecting his image. Now? I don’t give a fuck. I’m no longer going to be a storage shed for his shame.

Since that day, there’ve been more lies, more hiding, and a year-long affair that’s decimated our marriage (or what was left of it). I stopped talking to his mother when, after that first time, she commented that perhaps I was too hard on him or expected too much from him.

Fuck that noise. Mothers, stop excusing your sons’ bad behavior. Stop making it the woman’s job to take care of their precious egos. If my teenage son can make dinner, do the dishes, wipe up the bathroom floor after a shower, take care of his own laundry, remember to buy gifts for holidays and birthdays, and feed the dog without prompting, then your grown-ass sons can too.

You know what else, when my teenage son raises his voice to me because teenagers are teenagers with teenage frontal lobes, and I point out to him that it’s okay to get upset but not okay to speak to me that way, his response is to say, “You’re right, mom. I’m sorry. I should have taken a breath.” Then he gives me a hug.

Now, our marriage is dissolving, and I’m having to choose what story to tell people. Hubby is telling his story to the couple of friends he has. I’m demanding and controlling; I never let him do anything he wants (like see prostitutes), but he’s also using my chronic illness as a reason to divorce me, and saying I’m irresponsible with money. (That’s a different article entirely.)

Now, has anxiety caused me to grip tightly to him in the past? Yes. Have I asked countless questions about whereabouts since I’ve learned of the (repeated) betrayals? Yes. Absofuckinglutely. And guess what? My anxiety makes sense. My worry about his whereabouts makes sense.

The last time I truly worried about his whereabouts was the day I got a phone call and heard him having sex with his affair partner over the phone. I’m gonna go ahead and give myself some grace for the anxiety that followed. Since then, I just assume he’s always lying to me.

I’m also talking about it. See, when I thought our marriage could be saved I held back. Not even my best friends knew the extent of what happened in my marriage (they do now, because they follow this account… hey y’all!). Why did I keep it quiet or softer? Because if my marriage worked, I didn’t want the people who love me to hate my husband, and reading the truth is pretty fucking infuriating.

I’ve been mostly honest with Hubby’s sister (I need a new nickname for him, so if you have one, throw it in the comments for consideration). I didn’t tell her about the prostitution because I feel like sisters have a right not to know certain things about their brother’s sex lives.

I’ve been 100% honest with my friends. all of them. Including the friends we had jointly and the ones we met at the swinger clubs and parties we attended together. The more people knew about the truth of his behavior in our marriage, the angrier he got.

In Dr. Ramani Durvasula’s book, It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing From Narcissistic People, she says that when you try to hold narcissistic people accountable for their. behavior, when you share the truth about them, if can make them angry, insight rage. I have a recording of Hubby raging after talking about the fact that I was no longer keeping all of his behavior a secret.

Here’s the thing, though: shame is toxic. I refuse to carry it. Shame thrives in secrecy. I stopped living with the secrets years ago to some degree, and even more since. The fact that I won’t keep his secrets, that I won’t continue to be a dumpster he shovels his shame into, enrages him. He doesn’t want people to know the truth about what he did to me because then he will lose the good guy label he worked to cultivate.

So, he tells people some truths about me.

I broke his phone once because I was angry about repeated boundary violations with one of our swinging friends. She made fun of my disability. He refused to stop talking with her at a time when we were supposed to be “the firm”. He told me several times that he would stop talking with her, but didn’t.

I would regularly find myself yelling about household stuff. One example I remember is when I was recovering from paralysis due to a neuromuscular condition, he’d leave puddles of water on the floor post-shower. My cane or walker would slip, and it was dangerous. After repeatedly asking him to clean up these messes, and no change in behavior over months and months, I lost it. I don’t remember the exact things I said, but it was of the “Why don’t you want to keep me safe?” variety.

I slapped him after I found out he’d slept with prostitutes through most of 2023. (There’s probably lots I don’t know about.) It was one time, across the face, and not as hard as I could have. I’ve been weightlifting since my mid-twenties. If I mean to do harm, I can. After that discovery, and the subsequent lying and gaslighting, I also told him things like “I hope our daughters don’t wind up with men like you,” “I would hate if my son grew up to be like you.”

I yelled at him for hours on Christmas Eve. I’d asked him to wrap a set of pajamas for me for our Christmas Eve pajama tradition. The kids had been asking me for years why I never got Christmas jammies when they and Hubby all did. He didn’t do it. This was indicative of how he treats all holidays. On Mother’s Day for several years in a row, I’ve asked for hanging baskets of flowers for the porch, a trip to a state park with the kids, and a dinner I don’t have to plan or execute. He’s never done it. He doesn’t care about birthdays or holidays, so why should anyone else? The fact that he didn’t wrap the pajamas I’d bought myself set me off. This was after a year of trying to address to infidelity with prostitutes in therapy, continued lying about all sorts of things, and a complete refusal to take accountability and change his behavior. I told him I wanted a divorce that night.

Then I backed down.

Because that’s what I always did.

Then, there was the night I went into full-on primal panic mode after finding out about his long-term affair with a friend of mine. You can read more about that here.

So, yes, I’ve done these things. I’ve behaved in ways I am not proud of. I have lost my shit, I’ve yelled and screamed and lashed out. I’ve done all of this after being betrayed, lied to, gaslit about the betrayal and lies, and manipulated into believing there was something wrong with asking my husband to get me presents for a holiday or to wipe up the bathroom floor. I was upset about his behavior. He was upset about my reaction to his behavior. That is not the same thing.

Chronic invalidation activates the same part of your brain as physical pain. That’s why I felt like I was going crazy — he gaslit me until I questioned my own reality.

Now that I’m telling the truth about our marriage, the emotional abuse has kicked up a notch. I’ve been called pathetic and icky. I’ve been told he can’t imagine ever touching me again. I’ve been yelled at for asking him to leave the house for periods of time so I can have some peace with my children.

He’s blamed me for the stress in his relationship with his sister (whom he also lied to in order to sneak out and see his affair partner).

He’s blamed me for stress in his relationship with his mother (whom he’s been yelling at for years).

According to Dr. Ramani Durvasula, the truth teller in a narcissistic relationship is at risk. My presence, as someone who eventually saw through the gaslighting and lies, meant I became a reflection of the shame Hubby felt about his behavior and his self. Calling out a narcissist for their behavior leads to being ostracized. That’s exactly what’s happening now.

But I won’t stop. The more I tell the truth, the more empowered I feel to move forward and create a life without him. I cannot wait for the day that his voice isn’t in my head.

Molly Frances’s writing explores what it means to be human: relationships, families, sexuality, mental health, and growth. When she isn’t writing or working with clients, she’s either on a beach or reading (or both) or dancing with abandon. She lives with her children, a rescue pup, and too many books.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.