to want to stop talking about infidelity.

Wait what... it's the man's fault for not properly dealing with the wife's cheating?

What utter BS. Mumsnet double standard reaches a new high! (low?)

Just split apart properly. You screwed up and hurt him. He can't get over it years later. The damage is done, and can't be put right. The relationship is finished so stop messing about.

I don't think I'd stay with a cheater if it was at all possible to leave. I wouldn't keep bringing it up to them but it would be in my mind. Twenty years later if he was having a bit of a moan about a damp towel I'd left on the floor I'd be silently screaming in my head "AT LEAST I DIDN'T FUCK SOMEONE ELSE". I'd have to leave for my own sanity.

Sure you’d be saying that if the sexes were reversed.

if you cheat, the risk is that you fuck up your relationship. You can’t control the other person’s reaction.

Also unless I’ve missed it the OP doesn’t actually say when he found out?

"You clearly didn’t tackle it correctly at the time, and it was your responsibility to do that. This is why the wound has not healed correctly. How did you go about reconciliation? My bet would be a whole lot of rug sweeping."

Maybe she made a balls of the healing process or maybe he was just ultra determined to keep ripping the bandage off and chewing at the wound.

The axe forgets, the tree remembers.

You clearly didn’t tackle it correctly at the time, and it was your responsibility to do that. This is why the wound has not healed correctly. How did you go about reconciliation? My bet would be a whole lot of rug sweeping.

"AIBU to think it's time for him to let go of it and move on for both our sakes?"

I voted YABU because if he's still carefully tending the fire keeping his stew of resentment and misery simmering and bubbling for 20 years, he's never going to get over it. You might as well expect the sun to rise in the west. If you got back together he'd button you into your hair shirt every morning till you're dead of old age. For both your sakes, pull back. If you decide to stay friends then explain once that you don't want to hear it any more because it's achieving nothing. Maybe every time he brings it up, even pointed comments about some celeb infidelity, whatever you're doing just stop. Say nothing just get up immediately and leave your half drunk coffee in the café and go. Put the phone down mid sentence. Spin on your heel, walk back past the duckpond to your car in the carpark get in and drive. Calmly, no talking, no engagement just go, every time. Then he'll either get the message and stop or you can dump him.

Yeah I think this is why I couldn’t stay if my husband cheated. It would literally never be the same again.

This is really unhealthy for your ex. Because he is your children's father I think you should encourage him tonseek help to heal, as he is obviously massively stuck, which is miserable for all of you but especially him.

I can imagine it will be hard for him and I would also not be surprised if , should he manage to heal, this involved him putting you behind him and out of his life (at least, his close emotional life).

This is probably what needs to happen and it would probably be better for you (and the children ) as well, but he appears to be the one most in need of help here.

Did he discover the infidelity ~20 years ago at the time of the infidelity or is it something he only found out about more recently?

I would never get back with a cheater either. Both of you should have moved in different directions ages ago.

I totally agree with this and I’m the one, whose dh cheated on a ons.

What happened should never be a life sentence. People can get less than 20 years for murder.

Continuing to punish the other as the wronged party breeds toxicity and pain for both. It creates an insufferable dynamic for which both eventually become equally responsible for perpetuating. Thus buying into the Karpman triangle - perpetrator, victim, rescuer - and creating an unhealthy level of co-dependency.

This.

Entirely agree with this.
I am someone who has been cheated on and stayed married. We separated for a while and got back together. If a cheated on spouse, man or woman, decides to stay, part of that is accepting that it happened, dealing with it and not bringing it up all the time. That is not healthy for either partner, and if you can't do it, you need to accept you can't and end the relationship. Which OP has done, and still he continues to punish her over 2 decades later.

This is down to your own foolishness. You had the sleazy affair and now you just expect him to forgive and forget as if nothing ever happened.

Unsurprisingly, he can't forget. Either split permanently or understand and accept that this is the hurtful situation that YOU created. This is the risk that YOU took. Now you seem surprised that you are having to face consequences.

Does a spouse ever get over being cheated on? I’d imagine it’s more a case of the one who has been cheated on has to lock it in a box and try not to think about it, while the cheater just moves on from that ‘old news’.

And OP it’s not his thought of you cheating it’s his knowledge of you cheating.

I would say it’s best for both of you to distance yourselves from each other. Your kids are grown so other than weddings etc you don’t need to be involved in each other’s lives.

I think some of this comes down to when he found out. If it was in 2023 that’s one thing, and you’d understand why he’s still having a hard time with it, particularly as you’re still enmeshed.

If he knew fairly soon after the affair then yeah - it’s a bit unreasonable if you’ve put the work in to the relationship and stayed faithful since.

Either way, you two need space.

(Assuming he knew about your infidelity at the time and decided to remain in the relationship)

Agree with @TippledPink You split up over it, but haven’t properly separated and are not friends. Even if you both wanted only friendship most people wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who repeatedly raised past baggage. Low to no contact seems necessary.

My parents stayed together the whole of their adult lives. My DM was controlling, and definitely lacking in emotion. I often felt sad for my DF having to 'put up' with her.

We later found out (40+yrs) that DF had had a one night stand when DM was pregnant with me (3rd of 3 siblings). DF confessed it, DM forgive him and never mentioned it again. They moved on ....but they didn't. DM may never have mentioned it but it was there, it was there in everything they did and said to each other and it 100% affected my relationship with DM from in uetro onwards.

YOU were in the wrong and you can't expect him to forget and move on , that's his perogative and what you did has obviously hit him hard you are therefore BU to expect this. However it is your perogative to deal with this in your way, doing what is right for you and if distancing / co parenting is the way then so be it.

From personal experience though simply never mentioning it again does not mean it it is still not festering just below the surface!

Has he known about it for 20 years and mentioned it every day since, or did he find out about it more recently?

Cheating isn’t a “mistake”.

You need to separate permanently.

I was the child whose mother cheated. My parents stayed together because in those days, that's what you did. Every day, for the rest of their lives, my father sniped at my Mother for what she had done. It was bloody rotten for us kids (and her too, no doubt) and I used to long for her to leave him.

The other side of this, in my family's case, is that my dad wasn't really very nice to all of us, even before my mum's affair. She never could have left, though due to old fashioned ideas about what people would say, plus finances.

Anyhow, I say to OP make a clean break. Your DH can't forget (which of course is fair enough) but there's only misery for both if you continue to stay together.

If my DP told me he’d ’made a mistake’, I’d expect him to tell me in the next breath that he’d put black socks in a white wash, not that he’d stuck his dick in someone else.

I think if after 20 years he is bringing it up every day you just need to cut contact with him. You made a mistake, it hurt him badly, but if there can't be a line drawn for the friendship/relationship to move on then I would just walk away.