I just posted something similar. Sending hugs. I don't hate a lot, but I hate these monsters who hurt children :-(

I am terribly sad. I learned only after our disclosure that my husband was abused by his sisters as a child. They were abused by their father, and they abused him. I don't have any details. Not which sister/s. Not what they did. He was/is a wounded child, but he made the choice, as an adult, to wound his own children. I don't understand the hold he has on them emotionally. I feel like my older daughter would defend him to the death. Not to deny it happened, but to convince me he is changed and forgiven. The co-dependence is strong and we are all struggling with it, but I am the only one in a CoDA group. It's been a lifetime of not rocking Dad's boat. Don't make him mad, don't make him sad, do what he asks, and don't question his authority... I have to admit that the almost 2 years since disclosure have been his best behaved years of our entire 35 year marriage. I know he is afraid I will leave him, and I am certainly seriously considering that option, but it is so very hard, even if it shouldn't be. I pray I can face the denial that wants to creep in almost daily and do what needs to be done whatever that may be.

Good behavior can be used as a form of manipulation. "Look at me! I'm doing everything you like, just for you!" This can be used as a pretext for martyrdom, to make you feel guilty for ever doubting him. Then his anger and pouting will be justifiable, because he's "trying so hard." It shouldn't be hard to be a decent human being. I'm sorry about his horrible upbringing, but it's too late for sympathy for him.

Momto1, you ask million-dollar questions.

Naive, I know. I am struggling so hard to distance myself. I have all kinds of support, it's the actually following through that is not only difficult, but terrifying. I do believe I'll get there, and probably not too very long from now, but I can't help but hurt. I only wish I knew exactly how to go about this. It may sound crazy, but I desperately don't want to hurt him, even after what he has done to us, and I am working through the why's to that. Looking backward into my own childhood and the events that shaped me is helping. I had a family in crisis when I was born. ( My severely autistic brother was just 5 when I came along. When I was three months old my parents admitted him to an institution. He was there for 4 weeks before they couldn't stand it anymore and brought him home for another year. The next year they sent him to a school for the deaf out of state, but the second year the school sent him home after 2 weeks because he was a "behavior problem". I was two and a half when he was sent back to the state institution where he has remained for the past 50 years. My sister was born a month later.) I have never had the confidence or felt truly valued even though I know in my heart that my parents loved me as much as any of their other children. Sadly, it set me up for falling into a life of manipulation and co-dependence. I am learning and growing, but still finding it terribly hard, even though I know what I need to do. I desperately don't want to.