I think you are handling this ugly situation as gracefully as possible.
Not sure if it graceful or just stunned.
I absolutely believe that consent of your spouse is a requirement for starting another r/s like this. This is one of my strongest values, and it is about as black-and-white as it gets.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this. In the beginning, it was HIS idea. All of this started out because I was lonely and bored and answered an online ad. I talked to the guy for a day or two before telling my husband. I knew it wasn't right even though I was only exchanging online messages. Instead of my husband seeing it for what it was, which was that our relationship was in serious trouble, he saw it as an opportunity for both of us to see other people. In the beginning, I was excited about it because he was excited about it and was giving me more attention than he had in ages.
The situation where one lover grants consent, and later withdraws it after the relationship is established is a different mess. I can't get behind any black and white one size fits all answer on how to deal with that situation.
In the beginning, I was trying to honor his wishes when he would change his mind. It was all new so I knew there would be some bumps in the road. The problem is that when he would get jealous or have issues he would have really crappy reactions and would want to put a stop to it all. And then, he would decide to go back to our original agreement and would seek out other people again. In my opinion, he wasn't jealous of the fact that I was with another guy. He was jealous of the fact that he couldn't find anybody like I had.
I believe your choice to continue with your lover is completely valid, given the crap games your H is playing with you. I hope you aren't needing/choosing to lie to your H about this.
Oh no, I am not lying to him. There was a short period of time where I refused to talk to my husband about whether or not I was talking to my friend. If I said I wasn't talking to him, then my husband would start trash talking him and get upset that my friend did me wrong or some crap like that. If I said I was talking to him, then my husband would want details or get pi$$y with me. Nothing that I said or did was right so I refused to talk about it at all. Now that my husband has chilled out again, I have told him that I am still talking to my friend. I don't like lying and that was part of the reason that it was all such a mind mess. My husband had my permission but he would still lie to me about who he was talking to and what his intentions were. He would tell me, "Oh, we are just friends and we don't talk about that." But then I would find out that he was indeed going there if you know what I mean.
This brings me right back to the topic title: How are you doing at letting the idea that your husband abused you in? Believing it? Feeling it?
The idea is slowly sinking in. I have been slowly digesting it for 6 months or so. I found a book about verbal abuse about 6 months ago that really stunned me and woke me up a bit. Prior to that, I knew something wasn't right but wasn't exactly sure. I will never forget a time that I wrote a rather long blog post about micromessages. I was trying to tell him about how the micromessages (small nonverbal or verbal things) can negate a lot of positive stuff. I was trying to point out some of the little mean things that he says or does. He got all indignant with me and said, "Well, what you are doing now is a micromessage." The implication in the context of the conversation was that I was being mean to him by trying to bring this stuff up. I also wrote a blog post about gaslighting years ago. I was looking at both of those things in the context of parenting and how parents often do those things to kids. I was so blinded that I didn't realize that HE had been doing those things to me for years.
He and I have talked about some his abusive behaviors. I hate it because he will say stuff like, "I know I have been an abusive a$$hole and that is why I am going to let you go and not fight anything." What the heck? It makes me so mad because I feel like he is using that as an excuse to check out even further. I told him that I felt like I was emotionally done with our relationship and turned it around and said that it was going to complicate his recovery because it would make it harder for him to have a reason to continue. UGGGGG!
