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Husband read my journal w/o permission

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Rose White

MyPTSD Pro
My husband was acting strange and aloof on Thursday. That night he started a journal, which he has never done in his life. Then he started grilling me about our future and saying we needed to separate the bank accounts that instant. I said let’s wait until tomorrow.

The next day I procrastinate working on the accounts, write a bit, then face the task. After about ten minutes of looking at the accounts and hemming and hawing I say, “Why are we doing this? There isn’t really a problem with the accounts!”

“What about the rest of our life?!” He hotly demands.

I say if he wants to talk about that we can go in the room for privacy, away from the children.

We go in the room and I tell him the same tired story, that I’m recovering from csa and that my emotions are getting temporarily reorganized with help from my therapist. I tell him that I love him even when he can’t feel it and that I can’t force him to notice when I reach out to him.

He says a strange phrase, “Let's be honest.” He says it three times so I know he’s trying to tell me something. He finally spits it out, “I read your journal and I know that you’re in love with your therapist and not me! You wrote it yourself!”

Ugh. My husband who says he won’t go to therapy because he went as a teenager and “already knows what they will say” suddenly thinks he knows me because he read my journal. On top of that, just that week I had given him the book “Allies in Healing” by Laura Davis—a book for supporters of survivors—so I hoped he would begin to understand my distance and my vulnerability in this stage of my healing. Instead of communicating and reaching out to me he broke trust, pushed past a boundary, and took words not meant for him and used them against me.

Just that day, prior to talking to him, I was *just* beginning to make a connection between the transference and my relationship with my mom, which is numb and hollow. That progress is stopped as I try to figure out where I’m at now, how to pick up the pieces, and how to put some of them back together. Mostly I just feel defeated and don’t have any motivation to look at or face whatever was in my journal. My first inclination was to destroy my journal in a fit of rage. I’m glad I didn’t do it, but there is a nagging feeling that I want to disappear.

I told him that he has no idea what he’s talking about and asked him how he felt while reading it. I told him that when I was ten I read my mom’s journal once and knew it was wrong.

He then changed his tone from “you’re in love with your therapist so you don’t love me” to “I was actually so inspired by your writing which is why I started my own journal and think I should have a therapist too. You have nothing to be ashamed of.” He cried more than I’ve ever seen him cry and he said he was repulsive all his life.

Now I felt even madder because he wanted me to have compassion on him and forgive him in that moment. I told him that he would have to show me his apology through his actions over the coming days, that his words held little weight.

It has been about 18 hours since he told me. He is trying to be extra sweet now. He had been avoiding me with his wall up all week and now it’s down again. He wants to cuddle with me but he’s not *asking* for touch anymore, just ambushing me with affection.

Even though I am mad at him, my first tendency is to trash myself for not protecting my own privacy better and for not knowing that he was unable to protect my privacy.

I feel frozen toward him now. I feel distant from my kids again. I don’t know what will happen with the transference work. It took so long to cultivate it and to not trash myself for it. I believe it can recover, in time. For now I just have to figure out how to move forward knowing that most of my private thoughts were blown open when I wasn’t ready for it.

I had been working so hard to establish boundaries, to say no. Now the no’s feel a bit firmer and stronger. I thought that by having privacy it gave me something to bring to intimacy. Intimacy is about sharing a private part of yourself, right? If you have no privacy how can you have intimacy? I feel the opposite of intimacy toward my husband now, and I don’t know what it will take to heal this. Time and a sincere effort on his part to demonstrate respect of boundaries, I suppose.

Please no advice. Just support. I don’t care if it’s good for him to know my thoughts—it’s not ok if he forces his way into them. Also, I read my journal to my therapist so she knows all about the transference and was working with me on it.
 
That's a whole lot of his emotion that he is trying to place on you in this moment. There is a huge component of others simply not understanding what it means to be in therapy, just as some do not understand what it is like to go through a traumatic event. If he does in fact have his own issues, it is great he recognizes it. However, this is simply hijacking you and your process. Good for you in being able to see that and set your boundary. When you truly care for someone, you COMMUNICATE with them, and trust that their words to you are truthful. Pushing past that and reading journals leaves room for biased interpretations and things being taken personal as they did. I know you don't want advice, but I'd like to end by supporting you in saying keep focusing on you (unfortunately you will have to add this to your list of things to do in therapy), and if you so choose (which it sounds like you are/would be), be supportive of him in search of his own healing - I think that's great for anyone and everyone.
 
I have no problem giving you support here. I was struck by how well you handled the situation as I read through this post. I mean, you handled it beyond what I think I could have done.

You telling him he needs to show you his apology over time was perfect. Like something I want to do when I am faced with situations like this in my future.

That boundary you have set is the right one in my opinion and you seem strong about keeping it. I don't know you but I want to applaud you for that.

If anyone ever read my journal, I would be completely mortified so this is the place I am writing from here.

I wish you well recovering from this setback.
 
What a difficult thing, for both of you.

A note to look out for: there's a really predictable arc for betrayed spouses on learning of their partners infidelity. "Hysterical Bonding" ...that ambushing you with affection thing he's doing right now... Is typically followed by some major emotions (despair, rage, etc.) coupled with quite a bit of acting out.

- You're going through your own arc of (minor) lost trust from his reading your journal.
- He's been going through his own arc of (major) lost trust from believing he's caught you cheating.

((If you disagree with my assessment of major v minor? Imagine if instead of "I read your journal." He said "I'm in love with another woman." ))

And, unfortunately, everything that you've been doing since then in closing off, and hardening boundaries ,and insisting on privacy... is exactly what most cheaters do when busted & are taking their affair deeper underground.

I'd be less worried about your transference work, and more worried about saving your marriage... And very strongly suggest you get in with a trauma informed marriage counselor.
 
Honestly, I'd find it very hard for our relationship to come back from that. My journal is absolutely off limits and my husband knows that.

It's essential that we have some space that is private especially while dealing with the stuff you're working through. He has violated your privacy and deprived you of the opportunity to share with him at your own pace or to chose not to do that. I'd be both deeply hurt and absolutely furious.
 
It’s all so weird now. Since I had to try my best to explain everything, he feels like he has never understood or loved me as much as he does now, but I am repulsed by him. This repulsion feels identical to how I felt toward my dad when I was a teenager.

I was trying SO HARD to keep my feelings toward my dad separate from my feelings toward my husband. But when he sought validation for his fears in *my* healing recovery work it ignited a cold rage in me. And for him to feel as though he has gained insight from clumsily flailing through my own painful self journey is a heavy insult.

The transference is in a crumpled heap. I no longer feel hardly any gratitudes. I cycle through the three hates—myself, my partner, and my dad. I occupy my free time with mind-numbing activities. I told my partner that I forgive him—only so I could retreat as far as possible behind a wall of distrust and fear.

I realized that when he needed me protect him from my own recovery that he became unsafe. And I can’t undo that. Maybe he can. I don’t know.

I’m just going to be as cordial and polite and responsible as ever. Gonna buckle up. Grit my teeth.

I am grateful for some things: healthy kids, work has never been smoother, and strangers on the Internet who write things that when I read them give me a sensation very similar to a hug.
 
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