It’s been about 2 weeks since he cut contact with the woman he was seeing (read past posts for details, not exactly the normal “cheating” scenario), and things have been great. We have a 6 month old son and he got two teeth in last week so we’ve both been a little extra tired. Last night we got in a little “spat” and I’m just trying to process. He has to go out of town for a weekend for work and asked me if it would be ok. I’ve never minded him going out of town for work, but it’s usually only 1 night, and during the “affair” he used to say maybe he’d lie and say he was working so he could go see her. So it’s a bit of a trigger for me. He’s been doing IC and couples counseling with me and he’s made huge progress. But last night when he saw me get upset and I asked for reassurance that he was definitely going away for work, he wasn’t talking to her again, etc, he got all upset and sort of attacked. Said he knew I’d get upset and he just wants to be able to talk to me about stuff, said it’s bc of me he can’t be friends with her anymore, and said great now he has to talk about this in couples counseling and he’s just so over it. All very hurtful. He obviously upset me, I remarked that it wasn’t ME who caused him to not be able to have a friend, it was him and her taking things way to far that resulted in their friendship having to be cutoff. I also obviously told him he can’t expect any different reaction bc it was a trigger for me and HES the one who traumatized me with this experience. He also got upset because he wants some alone time, and I told him I trusted him in the fall 100% with alone time and he used it to break all our boundaries and basically have an affair... so he’ll have to forgive me if I find him asking for alone time triggering. I also said obviously I want him to get time to recharge as an introvert, but he might have to reassure me during those times that he is alone and not seeing someone.

5 mins after this convo, he apologized for everything and said he didn’t mean it. Said he was just tired and when I got upset he felt guilty and got upset. My question to him is... why does he have to attack and be so mean when he gets angry? All it does is confuse me bc he says these mean things then says he didn’t mean any of it. If he doesn’t mean it why say it at all? He spent the rest of the night apologizing, and I know his aggression has been heightened as he is a body builder currently taking some performance enhancers, but none of that is my fault and I don’t deserve the anger or the meanness.

I guess my question to other BS’s out there is, anyone else have this experience with their partner during reconciliation? Every once in awhile you have an argument about it due to a trigger and they are just super mean and say hurtful things only to take it back?