Affairs: Can you really get over one

[Disbelief]

I found out my husband was having an affair three months ago and athough we are both trying to make a go of our marrigae and sort things out I wonder will the pain ever really go, also if they stray once is it likely that they will do it again????

Mrs M just thought i'd say you are not alone- there are lots of us who truely know what you are going through as we've experienced the pain of an affair and you are now on a roller coaster of emotions that goes on a long time. i read your thread and can identify so much with many of the things you feel and also how your dh has and is acting. my dh finished the affair (ie sex( but kept in tcontact with her for quitesome time after i knew and kept lying to me even when i thought we were working to put it right. It took him a few months to finally "fing the plot" again and he kind of snapped out of it then sought counselling himself and started to acrually take responsibility for his actions.
nearly 2 years on we are together and strong but I still have bad days and he knows he has to deal with it- and be honest and answer all the questions i ask. Please feel free to chat here about it- no one can judge you for whatever you do or decide as you are not in the wrong you are fighting for a marriage that was (from what you say) good and probably still is , just hit a huge test. Your heart is broken by the one person in the world who had no right to break it! I urge you to be honest to tell your dh your feelings - the way you feel when he picks up his mobile, or is on his laptop he must now go out of his way to start winning back your trust. You are strong and you can get through this- it does not have to be the end if you want to give it a go. Take care.

Nuffsaid just read your post and im crying now! Dont know why really, i wont go into my stoty cos it would just make me angry and depressed. Couldnt say if we've worked it out or not tbh i think he needs serious help but he wont, says he will but he wont. Think u just reminded me of the horrid feeling when it all comes out and the suspiscion. Mind you now its got to the point when if i find out he's lying its actually a relief you know

I came home unexpectedly at lunchtime & he looked shifty. He said I made him jump cos he & DD 15mths were vacumuming & didnt hear the door. DS (3 1/2) were meant to be at a party.
I just feel paranoid & everytime he seems jumpy I wonder what he was doing.
TOld him I didnt think I could do this & wanted to see his mobile phone - he handed it str to me but I didtn look.
he is trying but I just cant trust him
he wont go to counselling

I just dont know what to do

when I look at other marriages including my brother's I just think "why me" I let him get away witb far more than most women & their husbands dont stray

I know I was horrible to live with back in mar when I hit rock bottomw with PND but I didnt go off & sleep with someone else

he wont leave work - asked him
will she live?
maybe

Maturer "your heart is broken by the one person in the world who had no right to break it" thats the hardest thing isnt it, i had walls up against everyone else but i totally let him in had no defences at all

so true
the one person who I want a hug off is the one person who has broken my heart
soooo hard
only been a week for me and just dont know what to do

DH says all OK, nothing to worry about etc
but he still sees this woman every day at work....he wont leave (asked him) thinks she will

how do you trust agsin?

Sorry am hijacking your thread with my ramblings, will come back tomorrow when i hopefully will have something more positive or constructive to say!!

pesha- it is the hardest thing. but time does heal and honest talking can bring you closer. i would never wish this experience on anyone in the world but i do believe sometimes you have to experience true pain to appreciate all the good things you have and to a certain extent take for granted because life kind of gets in the way. My dh now realises just how close he came to losing so much for so little!

I hope you're right Maturer
at the mo, it jsut doesnt seem like we can move on
DH is trying 120% but I still cant trust him
dont want to let him out of my sight
want to check his phone & laptop

told him I still dont trust him & he seems to be making an effort but sooo hard

X posts! Cant trust him again but thats cos he still keeps lying and every now and then i get proof. We're split at mo but he been saying he wants to get back together but now i find out he been lying again its been like this for nearly 2 years but even when we not together he is my best friend he's like 2 completely seperate people, 1 lovely and 1 absolute w*er and its all getting abit much at the mo.

Sorry! It does get easier though im just having a bad night tonight. Ive learnt to trust my instincts, if i feel like he's lying then now i know he is, im always right I just used to ignore it and think it was paranoia etc but its always turned out to be right.

Sorry i cant be more helpful. Iknow people do make it work. I found with my friends or people i know they all seem to say oh no i could never forgive an affair, he cheats hes out etc but its just not that simple is it. And i felt stupid and humiliated i didnt want anyone to know which is silly really cos he's the one thats been the fu**ing idiot!

MrsM, not sure i will ever trust him 100% again but 2 years on i feel 95% and the other 5% is always about HER not about other women. However I could only start to make that leap of faith towards trust when he started acting as though he realised just what he'd done and how much he'd hurt me. he had to convince me that it was me he still wanted and that he would go out of his way to put it right, as far as he could for the rest of our days. I don't think your dh has got there yet so you will not yet be able to make the laep of faith to trust again- time time time talk talk talk!Big hug- know your pain!

but my DH works with HER
how do you deal with that?
he wont leave
he says he thinks she will

he is just being arogant about the whole situation..."the issue is dealt with; I can be professional enough thas it wont be a problem"

things liek that

sooooooooooo difficult

I know how you feel mrs m he had got back with his ex couple months after i got pg and they live in this little town and i dont. she was at football skittles bloody scouts that he used to help out with everything. No advice on how to deal with it though sorry but i do know how hard it is and how it can eat you up inside. And i hate her btw, not for seeing him cos she never knew about me either but cos i rang her and told her and she didnt believe a word of it and was really nasty then i had a weekend of withheld no calls just silence then hanging up which im sure was her and i think pretty nasty considering im here on my own with 2 kids to look after

god its so hard not to email her or txt her - I have email address (as works with DH) and stored her mobile no from DH phone
I know this wont help - she'll either lie cos wants him back or lie cos still going on
either way I know that I need to fix our marriage & try to forget her

hard when you know that daily he's chatting to her - he is arogant and thinkS he can just chat aoubt work & she'll just have to deal with the fact its over
bastard!!

I have to say id be tempted to phone or e mail her, yes she prob would lie but all you really know is what he's told you, she could be very different but i think its asking an awful lot of yourself to try and forget about her so soon, maybe it would help to have it out with her. Prob wouldnt help your dh as he works with her but perhaps he should have thought of that before. Its all his mess, you may make things worse for him but its still his mess iyswim. But then i dont know it could make things harder for you but i would definately think about whats right for you and what you need to do to help yourself move on, not whats right for him. And if that means contacting her then do it. But i can see it could make things worse for you but worth giving serious thought to, dont just dismiss it cos you think you shouldnt

my dh had an affair twice with the same woman over 10 years ago now, and we did try again, it was hard at first to trust him again, but as time goes on i've just about forgotten about it, in fact i saw her in the doctors surgery the other day and nearly said hello to her, cus i knew it was someone i knew but i had forgotten how i knew her.oops

lol tpk thats really funny sounds like kind of thing id do!! I saw the girl my bloke cheated on me with (well one of the girls!) in town the other day, only noticed her cos she was staring at me, she'd put on loads of weight and looked really rough so didnt recognise her at all, asked him who it was and he said he didnt know then later said oh i think it was sian. She was looking pretty smug though which considering ive lost weight and she gone the other way just made me suspicious, but i not where you are yet, maybe one day...

Sorry that makes me sound really shallow doesnt it, she was really nasty cow tho so just looking for something to get one up on her iykwim

hi MrsMiggins. I know exactly how you feel... well more or less. dp had an affair with a girl i knew for 6 weeks. we was going through rough patch and i was 8 months pregnant. i didn't even have a clue but when he eventually told me everything made sense. she had even been in our bed while dp sent me to a hotel to 'relax'.
this was about 8 months ago now but the pain is there as if it was yesterday. The girl was such a bitch to me phoning me slagging me off and putting me down telling me im ugly and no wonder he was with her. he continued to see her after i found out for a further 2 weeks until she told him on boxing day she was pregnant. She was only pretending to try and get him to stay with her but she kept it up for about 5 months which hurt terribly.
i feel i will never trust him no matter how much i want to again. i always check his phone when he isn't looking and im worried sick every time he goes out. i hate living like this but i just hope that one day i will stop obsessing about the other woman and comparing myself to her and putting myself down. i see her around no and again as she doesn't live far but i hate her so much that i wish she would die. i really do.
i hate feeling like this. my dp and i are trying so hard to get through this together and he constantly tells me how much he loves me and how it was the biggest mistake of his life. but i always think that if she hadn't pretended that she was pregnant would he have stayed with her? i always feel second best to her. she isn't even pretty and she is quite fat and she is very imature and nasty person but i still feel that she has got one over on me and will always be laughing at me behind my back.
i know the best revenge is to be happy and show that none of it has affected you but i just cant. i want proper revenge on her. i wish she could suffer like i have but then that just makes me as nasty as she is.
i wish i could wake up tomorrow morning and love myself and look forward to the future and stop thinking about the past. but i just cant see it happening... not for a long long time

I really don't care about the other woman at all. I'm not sure that it's helpful to even go there with talking to them or thinking about them too much. To some extent I think it's almost displacement activity - your feelings about your dh (or p) are so complicated - on the one hand you hate them, but on the other hand you love them, and still want their hugs and love (and if you are like me, you still want to hug and love them). The other woman can be a much easier enemy. But at the end of the day it's your man that has hurt you, the woman on the whole, and I'm not talking about those who discover that it was with a friend, has really nothing to do with you. I think that the most important thing to do post affair is to make sure that you are OK. Concentrate on what makes you a good, lovely, attractive, worthwhile person so that you have the strength to move forwards come what may.

For me having counselling helped enormously, not only with coping with the aftermath of the affair, but also with my underlying insecurities. I learned that I was valued at work, that I had some great friends, that my family are there should I need them, and that I had behaved well and had nothing to be ashamed of. At the same time I came to understand the circumstances that lead to the need for my dh to have a fantasy life (including the affair) and to take responsibility for those times when I played a part, without feeling that it was my "fault".

Now all I have to do is persuade my dh to have some counselling, as I am really worried that his depression is going to stop us moving on.

Good Morning, Just been having a catch up with you all. Its sad that so many of us have been hurt this way, the good thing is that according to the tread most of you have only gone through it once with our dh / dp.

Nooka, I think you are right about the other women, I need to stop obsesssing about her and concentrate on making things good.

I find that if my dh has had a drink he opens up more and is more prepared to discuss it - i dont know if this is a good thing or not.

MM I hope you are ok, I have been thinking about you a lot over the weekend.

Hi girls
weekend was OK - stopped feeling sick & Sunday night we cuddled on the sofa like we used to.
Woke this morning & felt sick cos he's going to work again.
felt crap all day & havent eaten which is unlike me but I just have no apetite
will feel better when he gets home but going to be late cos leaving do - thinking about it perhaps I should have told him he couldnt go in the circumstances - after all - hes had an affair & life for him just carries on.
only just thought about it though

seeing my counsellor tomorrow so hoping she'll help me make sense of my thoughts & feelings as I just feel in a muddle

what doesnt help is having an arse of a brother & SIL who had a go at me yesturday abourt my parenting...they had actually spent all weekend fighting & just used me as a punchbag
could have done without it though

So sorry to hear that this has happened to you.
I read recently that statistically most marriages survive if it is the man who is unfaithful but most fail if it is the woman - so plenty of women do make a go of things after this.
I don't think things could be the same afterwards and think it must be very hard to build up trust after that sort of thing. BUT...Marriages are about a lot of other things besides being faithful so maybe those things are important enough to cancel out the affair for some people?

No the one that finally broke our marriage I could not get over......so I married him!!!!

MM, I know what you mean about having no appetite, I did not eat for about five weeks, and lost over a stone.

The really difficult thing for you is the fact that he sees her each day at work. If that was me and I know we are all different but I would insist that he looked for another job, I could not deal with him seeing her in the day.

Is he going to counselling with you tomorrow, we have been going for the last few weeks together and although dh was not keen it has been beneficial for both of us, you should try and get him to go with you if he is not already.

You are too understanding there is no way on this earth my dh would be out on a works do at the moment. Is she going to be there? Have you thought anymore about contacting her? I would, but I think I have a different temperent to most people.

Good luck

I would not forgive!