Can't get over DH's infidelity

[cloudybay24]

My DH was unfaithful to me with a colleague between Sept - Dec 2009. It was en EA which crossed the line and they kissed twice (drunk allegedly) It ended because I found out.

Prior to the Sept they texted a lot on evenings and weekends. I warned him it was inappropriate (21 vs his 41 and she was his admin person. She also babysat for us (I know FFS)).

Since then I believe that he has had minimal contact with her, he had her moved and got a new assiatant, and has gven me no reason to doubt him.

The problem is that I can't stop getting churned up about this. Try as I might I can't get over the texts and emails which I saw, I relive them in my head word for word, and have convinced myself that he must have slept with her - why wouldn't he have if he had the chance?

His reason was we weren't getting on. He acknowledges it was totally out of order, but says that it meant nothing.

I thought I was getting through this, rebuilding the trust, and I DO trust him on the whole, he is open with me about where he is, always in touch etc.

But I keep going over and over it in my mind, I want to punish him. But I love him and he loves me. We used to feel we were really special, but I feel he's spoilt it. I don't want to be 60 and still harbouring this bitterness.

We have 2 DCs, 12 and 8.

I don't think you've unearthed the real reasons why this happened, OP. I also think you might be burying your head in the sand a bit about not worrying where this would have led, but for your discovery. As a general rule, I think that emotional affairs are merely the prelude to a combined affair, especially when they are thwarted by a faithful partner's actions and not those of the affair partners.

I also baulked at your H's rationale about you "not getting on". That's a ludicrous (and utterly false) excuse for an affair. I think what your H means is that he saw the opportunity for an adventure with a young (apparently disposable) woman and took it. I'd wager that you could have been getting on famously in every area and this would still have happened, because your H simply couldn't resist the opportunity and was enjoying the fawning attentions of a naive and impressionable young person.

When he says "it was nothing" I suspect what he means is that in his morality, sexual adventures were permissible, as long as they didn't lead to falling in love and jettisoning his family. I worked with men for years whose mantra was "don't fall in love and don't get caught" and this may well apply to your H's permission-giving process.

I'm afraid therefore that I think you have been sold a massive pup about your H's motives and his intentions to progress the affair and because you instinctively know this deep down, your spirit is kicking back.

All the rational dialogue about it not being a full affair, you managing to stop it in its tracks, the need to save the marriage and give your DCs a stable family etc. might work fine and well for some of the time.

But there's that inner voice that as humans, we should never shoo away. We should always listen to it, because it tells us when we are being short-changed and making compromises and bargains in life and when we aren't being true to ourselves.

Thank you everyone, specially WWIFN

I know that I am not in any way to blame for this affair. My only crime, in my own eyes perhaps, is to have stayed with him, thus telling him and mysekf that I can forgive him (I can't). But I stayed because I love him deeply and was not willing to let 22 years of 'us' (OK, I acknowledge it was also 3 months of 'us and her') go without at least trying.

If I had walked away, I would never have known whether we could have worked it through and got back on track. At least this way I am giving it my best shot, and hey if I can't get over it then so be it. I will be 2 yrs down the line with nothing lost.

The inner voice is rarely wrong, I accept that and will listen to it.

Gwink, I am sorry you are going through this too, I will have a look at your thread.

cloudy I often suggest after an affair that the faithful partner does the maths. and works out whether the affair defines the person. Although infidelity never happens in a vacuum and is always a more extreme manifestation of selfish behaviour that was always there, as human beings we can all be a bit selfish, especially if we are allowed to get away with it unchallenged.

If you can honestly say that in the main, your H before this was a kind, loving, nurturing partner and in 22 years, gave you 3 months of madness, then that suggests that this was an aberration.

If however those 22 years were characterised by other hurts and lots of controlling and manipulative behaviour, then the affair can be seen as yet another example of it.

It's therefore not wrong to try at all and I always advise people to be slow in coming to a decision; to put their pride to one side and see what they can learn from this awful experience.

However, this is with one proviso. The faithful partner must be told the unvarnished truth about everything in the affair and especially the unfaithful person's real motives, feelings and intentions. There must be no sweeping things under the carpet and a rush back to normality, because when this happens, people end up feeling like you do.

If infidelity is not properly analysed and discussed, there is an even higher risk that it will occur again. The taboos have gone and the feared consequences never did materialise.

Whereas, if your H had done the really difficult stuff and worked with you and especially on himself, repeat infidelity actually becomes a much lower risk than in couples who haven't been through this crisis and the taboos are even stronger.

So you're not wrong for trying, but you have been unwise settling for so little understanding. However, it's never too late to agree conditions for staying in this relationship and insisting on what you need to quell that inner voice. As you do so, you will feel your self-respect returning as your actions become congruent with your inner dialogue.

Cloudy, you say you believe he has had only minimal contact with ow since you discovered the ea. Does he need to be in contact with her atall?

Three months sounds long enough for more than a drunken kiss, and all the texting before Sept. I wonder if you are stuck because realy you don't feel you have been told the full facts.

I am sorry, I know how deep the hurt is.

I totally agreee with Peter, if my dh had an affair, emotional or otherwise, i would hope to goodness it meant something, to be worth throwing the happy marriage away for.

It all depends doesn't it perfumed by what is meant by that phrase "it was nothing"?

I've given one suggestion - that the OP's H might have been the sort of man who believed that brief flings were permissible, as long as he didn't fall in love and/or get caught and I also suggested that in addition to that personal vulnerability, there may have been a lifestyle vulnerability too, in that his friends, colleagues and organisational culture may have shaped that belief. Note that for a man like this with personal and lifestyle vulnerabilities, there do not have to be any relational problems at all.

However, sometimes when an affair happens and there is an addiction to the feelings it is evoking (of being adored, desired and respected by a daft young woman) and the addiction is to those feelings and not the woman herself, the involved partner will often say "it was nothing" and what he means is that the attachment to the OW wasn't very strong at all; that he didn't love her, although he might have liked her as a person and cared as a decent person might, about her feelings. This type of affair could point to all three vulnerabilities, but it is also a classic MLC affair, where a man is perfectly happy with his relationship, but is feeling that the adventures in life are over and other events in life have conspired to get him down (job failures, bereavements, illnesses etc.)

The problem for cloudy is that she hasn't been told what this meant and her H appears to have minimised this and tried to sweep it under the carpet.

Just unpicking that "it was nothing" statement would occupy several counselling sessions, I think!

Yes, you're totally right of course WWIFN, it's just that I would hope the 'something' was even just 'escape from the daily grin' rather than 'it
meant nothing'.

OP people do come through this, it may just be that you both need to rewind a bit until you feel you have the full picture, the reasons for the ea and knowledge that dh knows you need time and patience and unending understanding.

not grin, grind

I think seeing if you can make things all right is the right thing to do and much easier to leave and move on from if it is not get over-able. I went back to an ex and knew pretty quick I was right in my feelings about it. I don't regret going back.

Thanks for all your posts.

I didn't post a lot of detail about his explanation for the affair or what it meant, because I was looking for help for myself, however the reason he gave was that we had not been getting on (we hadn't), we weren't communicating well, he was under extreme pressure at work and I didn't understand (she did). He said he wasn't looking for it, but they got on, had a laugh and developed a relationship conducted almost wholly via text and email. I have seen a lot of the emails, whilst they make for pretty unsavoury reading, ie it was MY DH saying these things, it was saucy and suggestive rather than reference to anything they had actually done or were planning to. If that makes any sense. I would not necessarily have jumped to the conclusion that that they had actually had any physical contact from the emails.

The reference to it meaning nothing was him telling me that he didn't have strong feelings for her, and certainly that he never intended to leave me. We have discussed whether that made me less than nothing if he was prepared to risk me for 'nothing' -he used the word to mean 'insignificant' (to him), ie not thought, emotion or time consuming, just something daft and "embarrassing" (his word).

I feel I have been given frank answers to the questions I asked.

Our years together before 2008 were happy, loving and fun. I guess we have been pretty charmed. No money worries, healthy DCs. But 2008-9 was very hard with illness and bereavement. I guess that affected us both, but can't really imagine how that could have led him to do what he did.

I do not want to let this event ruin everything. I acknowledge it changes things dramatically. In some ways it has been for the better. I just wish I could stop thinking about it.

Your story is spookily similar to mine. Thanks advice on here (WWIFN) we have made some real progress in the last couple of days. She talks a lot of sense and I would listen to her advice.

The other thing that has really helped me also is the counselling. Not just the process itself, but the fact that he suggested it, organises the sessions and takes it seriously. The fact that he has done this is one way that he demonstrates how massive his betrayal was and how determined he is to never go there again. Your counsellor sounds like a total twonk, but I wouldn't give up on the idea.

I don't know whether we will make it and I certainly don't have all of the answers (as my own thread demonstrates) but you will get some good help and support on here.

Hey Gwink

I think that couple counselling may be a good idea.
Coming on here has helped hugely - even the process of writing it down has been quite cathartic.

I only told 1 person in RL, a very close friend whose DH conducted an affair lasting the best part of a year. She stayed with him. She was the one who said that it was worth staying to see whether you could get through it - if you couldn't you can walk away and say you tried. It was good advice. I am glad I stayed and despite the hurt I am still deeply in love and feel very loved in return. For months and months I had actually felt I had turned a bit of a corner, this has taken me a bit by surprise.

Really hope you and DH make it, it sounds like you are at least pulling in the same direction. Good luck x

Spidookly, that's exactly what I was going to say about it 'meaning nothing' although you've put it much better than I would've..

Sorry cloudybay but I can readily see why you are not getting over this, from your posts - and from your H's responses.

His reasons for the affair don't seem to have moved on from what some unfaithful people come out with in the early days. Now either you haven't pressed for more since, or he is still sticking to this story, but it's not the truth, I can assure you.

I believe that your H felt under pressure and in need of an escape. I believe that the relationship didn't feel threatening and that he didn't want either you or your marriage to be affected by it. I believe he didn't want to leave you and that all the while he could tell himself that this was "insignificant" he could delude himself that it wasn't threatening and dangerous.

I don't believe that he felt he couldn't share his pressures with you. I bet he didn't even try, or if he did it was long after he had identified this woman as an affair opportunity and was setting you up to fail. I don't believe that this affair wasn't consuming, because I bet it was all-consuming and that he was devoting significant effort to keeping it going, detracting from his feelings for you and your relationship in the process.

He clearly hasn't had any counselling to unravel why he gave himself permission to have an affair or to assess his individual vulnerability to infidelity. He has instead bought his own lies that this wouldn't have happened if your relationship had been good, had he not been under so much stress and had he not had a golden opportunity.

Because none of this has been analysed, you are at more risk of this happening again, because the personal taboo has gone and the feared consequences of infidelity have never materialised.

I'll also venture a guess that your H has spoken to no-one about his affair and why he did this (apart from you), has never read anything about infidelity and why it happens and would resist solo counselling like the plague. That he might be persuaded to go to relationship counselling, but more for your benefit than his and with a goal of you learning to live with what he's done, rather than his own goal of understanding what he did and why.

Just another thought. Have you considered that the true reason for this affair was in fact the following:

The opportunity for a low-risk sexual and romantic adventure presented itself, he decided he wanted it and told himself "why not? This opportunity might never come again."

And it's as simple, banal and horrible as that?

But to accept that, it will mean that this had nothing to do with you or your relationship and everything to do with him as a person? And that's too scary, because it means you could have done nothing to prevent this - and can do nothing to prevent it happening in the future?

Ouch, WWIFN, your last post especially is very insightful. I think you might have hit the nail on the head there :( I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of affairs could be included in that category of rationale.

Ditto Cheerful - OUCH

WWIFN are you saying that we're basically screwed? I've asked the questions, had the answers and he said that she means nothing to him and he didn't sleep with her which were the things I needed to hear the most. Whatever he'd said wouldn't have been goos enough because he stepped outside our precious circle and sullied things, however that was close to OK.

If I acknowledge that he couldn't resist a "golden opportunity", irrespective of the state of our relationship, then surely the trust is gone forever because I cannot control how other women may act around him, and his reactions appear to be programmed irrespective of how much he loves me.

This is the man I have been with for nearly 24 years now (22 when this happened). I had no idea he was capable of this let alone how to deal with it.

To be honest I was relieved when he said it was "nothing".

Not necessarily.

But you cannot control his fidelity and you could not prevent his affair. Only he is able to do that, only he was able to do that.

You might be screwed if he doesn't get that, or understand why he did this - also if he doesn't admit that this would have become a physical affair if you hadn't found out.

Because while you can protect your own fidelity and stop yourself having affairs, that's where your control ends. Until he eradicates his individual and lifestyle vulnerabilities to infidelity and changes his belief system, you will carry on feeling this bad and this low.

The work he hasn't done on himself is the missing piece of your particular jigsaw.

thx wwifn