I finally understand the rvo in darvo.

I'm a 6 1/2 year lurker, first time poster.

My backstory, in brief, is that I rug swept an affair that happened a week before our wedding 18 years ago. She confessed right away (kind of), and I thought the right thing to do was plow through it, especially because she stuck (and still sticks) to the story that it wasn't consummated.

However, a few years later, I bluffed my way into her admitting that it wasn't just a one time drunken thing, that instead it occurred over a few days. A detail I technically hadn't asked, so it was a lie of omission. A few months later after finding it out, the emotions all rushed out, I found SI, and have been a frequent pain shopper here ever since.

As soon as I learned the body of collective wisdom here, I asked for a written timeline, and she provided it, and we finally faced this in a way that we hadn't. It took several blow-ups and lots of painful rehashing to really come to terms with the shaky unsolid foundation our marriage is built upon. We are mostly healed. Mostly.

Back when we first finally started confronting the bump under the rug, we happened to be having a discussion over-the-phone, and I demanded she promise me that she would never do anything like this again. She equivocated, and her reasoning was that because she already showed to herself that she was capable of blowing past her own moral boundaries, she can't promise anything like that. "wrong answer!!" I shouted and hung up.

We worked it out (that was almost ten years ago), but she brought it up a couple days ago, during an argument, using it as an example of being forced to promise something a person really can't promise.

It bothers me that A) she framed herself as the victim in that scenario, and B) whenever she brings up the inauspicious way our marriage started, it is for her own ends.

Another example is how now that I have admitted that I was carrying a crushing weight throughout our actual wedding....it has ruined the memories of our wedding for her. ugh.

5 comments posted: Wednesday, April 16th, 2025