I am struggling to trust/forget things my wife F30 said to me M28 during a moment of extreme stress. Can you guys give me a reality check?
Some context, and I will try to keep it as objective as possible, cuz I’m just looking for a reality check. My wife has been traveling for work lately, and as she told it, had to stay in a shared house for employees. She wasn’t super comfy with it, but her room had a lock and she was friends with 2 of the people staying there so she decided it was fine.
After a particularly long shift, she told one of the friends, a guy she thought was gay, that she could use some drinks. Guy brings drinks back to the place, and 3 of them have a few. (C told me 3) she’s apparently touching his arm, laughingly putting her head on his shoulder, “treating him like one of the girls” she said. At some point for whatever reason he made her feel u comfortable so she went to bed. Then at 2 am he texts her saying he’s outside her door. She gets up, opens the door doesn’t say anything, then goes and lays down. She doesn’t know why she did that. He comes in and lays down in her bed and that’s when she realizes that this isn’t good. At this point he tried to kiss her/ make out without her consent. When she relayed all this to me, (she was extremely upset understandably) I made sure she was safe and got a hotel room, and then ( and this is fully on me) I froze.
I didn’t know what to do, and upon hearing about the stuff that had happened before, I was pretty hung up on it. I didn’t know how to be there for her the way I should’ve been. In this I feel like I failed as her husband. I should’ve tabled my emotions, found someone to watch the kids, and driven down to be with her. But it took me a few days to get things together and I was really stressed and struggling to table those emotions. I don’t hide things like that well and knew she would pick up on it.
As I drove down a few days later, I told her I was feeling hung up on why she had opened the door, and asked to understand better. She got extremely upset, told me I was victim blaming her, and proceeded to insult me a few times, as well as saying she would take the kids away from me if we got a divorce.
This all made me very worried and got me wondering if me being around her was a good idea. When I finally got there, I told her that I was there to support her, and do whatever she needed to help, but that I wasn’t in a good headspace to discuss the things she had wanted to fight about, and that if it started to turn into a fight, I would leave. She pushed for a fight, and eventually I left. She told me that she would call the cops and report our car as stolen if I didn’t turn around. (I didn’t.) and a few more insults as well.
Once she got back home she apologized for what was said, and per my request we’ve started couples therapy and individual therapy. But through all of this, I am struggling. I can’t unhear what she said to me or how she said it. I’ve been in an emotionally abusive relationship before, and having someone I love deeply actively try to hurt me and threaten me has really messed me up and opened old wounds.
She’s told our therapist she’s all in on trying to fix our relationship, and I’m just wondering how I can go about forgetting all of this, because I’ll be going about my day and the emotions from everything will just bubble up and suddenly I’ll be feeling empty and crying. It’s been 2 months. Guess I just don’t know what to do, and any advice would be appreciated.