So low after discovery of affair

[Heartbroken32]

How do you get over this . First found out h was doing something he shouldn't have been at beginning on nov 2011. He was texting ow for months at point of discovery. He initially told me it was nothing but flirty texting and he could not cross that line. However weeks of lying later it was Slept with her once big mistake etc.... Then following week twice etc .... Then finally admitted to me that it happened on four separate occasions and he really only had full sex with her once and realised what a big mistake he was making and the risk of losing me and our 3 dc. He is extremely remorseful and really is trying to rebuild our relationship but this has sent me mad with all the lies and now I cannot believe a word he says to me. To make matters worse ow is extended family and very much a minger and 15 years older than me! This has left my confidence at rock bottom with feelings of why would he want that over me...

Advice please for my sanity as this is on my mind morning noon and night.

You are making excuses for him less than 2 weeks after finding out. All the blame is on her " She caught him at his weakest" What does that mean exactly?

"He has never done this in 14 years." How do you know that? He may never have been caught in 14 years but no one can be 100% certain of that.

People who forgive so readily and so easily are asking to be hurt again. I know a bloke who had an affair and got caught yet his wife totally blamed the other woman and forgave him almost immediately as though it really hadn't happened. He was laughing about it in the pub a few weeks later and said he had got off scott free! He had just told her the minimum he could get away with and she believed him. Guess what....years down the line and he has cheated on her numerous times.

Even if you want it to work I would make him suffer for what he has done. Kick him out and make him prove to you that he has made the biggest mistake of his life. he needs to know what the penalty will be should he do this again.

Its like criminals in this country, they commit crime, they get 100 hours community service and an £80 fine and hey ho they commit more crime. If the punishment is not severe enough then the offender thinks they crime is worth the punishment!

LovingFreedom
You hit so many nails, right on the head.
Your guy lost a great gal.

In my confusion I can come to only one conclusion but that still does not excuse what he has done. In the 14 years we have been together there just has not been even a hint of what his behaviour was like the weeks that he was acting I will call strange. I know him very well and he has difficulties communicating with everyone including myself due to problem he has not resolved from childhood. He does not go out and socialise at all without us as a family. He was using the opportunity whilst at work during the day (he is a trucker) and would take her on jobs when late evening or weekend. This has all been backed up by evidence of the only opportunity he had to do it. She has always blatantly in frOnt of me flirted with him and he has acted like "rabbit caught in headlights" but she knew whilst I was there he would not reciprocate. We had a very traumatic time last year which did effect us as a couple and I feel it was a case of she was offering it on a plate. From what he had told me he backed off several time and told me she says he was confusing her. He had penetration with her once and after he told her he wasn't goin to do it anymore as he realised he did not want her she was left feeling "used and hurt". Well my feeling of that is what the fuck did she expect. Now I know from family she was wanting more and that was her agenda and because he did not want that she felt used. I'm rambling sorry. It all fucked up in my brain. I just want this shit to stop ruling my thoughts and ask do they really regret it and u can move on from this.....

I'm so sorry, but he is absolutely lying to you, and using your knowledge and obvious dislike of her(good instincts btw) to concoct this "it wasn't my fault" crap. He's hitting you with this when you're down, when you're vulnerable, when you most want it to be true.

But it is not true. He calculatedly had an affair.

I don't think this shit will stop ruling your thoughts-at a guess your gut is telling you that what he is saying is a crock of shit. I'm afraid for you-that you're going to let him do this to you as often as he wants by trying to logic all the bad stuff away.

It's possible to overcome an affair, but only within certain conditions.

If the person who's been unfaithful tells the truth and starts taking full responsibility for his actions.

That doesn't sound to be the case here and unfortunately you're complicit in that right now, blaming his weakness and the OW's predatory actions. It also sounds as though you have been like a bloodhound seeking out the bits to the jigsaw that he could have given you all along, but didn't. Every new truth seems to have come from your efforts, not his. It sounds as though even two months on, you haven't got the whole truth. How do you know they had penetrative sex only once, or that he rejected her straight afterwards? How do you know he finished the relationship? That there were no feelings on his side, either felt or expressed? Unless you have independent evidence, you'll never know because he has lied so much.

All you can really trust in this situation are these: your own memory and the 'things' that can't lie - phone bills, texts, letters/E mails between them and the odd off-guard disclosure he might make when his defences are down.

You can choose to believe a story of a hapless weak man who was feeling low/unloved and was targeted by a promiscuous woman, but I think the truth of it is more likely to be this: your husband was a selfish man who would have taken and enjoyed this opportunity at any time, regardless of his low mood or his feelings about your relationship. Until you and he he admit the opportunistic nature of this and stop putting the blame elsewhere, you will make no progress and it could so easily happen again, given the opportunity.

christ all-fuckin'-mighty

I have seen some women make some excuses for men's bad behaviour...but you take the biscuit, OP

"She caught him at his weakest"

"He has never done this in 14 years."

He's been shagging FAMILY??

Err, why are you blaming her? She may be a Skanky Ho, but HE is the one who is supposedly committed to you?

I would seriously make him sweat for a hell of a lot lot longer before letting him get his feet back under my table .

I came here to take a look at 'recovery' stories because my wife's having to do the same following my stupid behaviour. I didn't come here to post but I want to balance a couple of the things I've seen above.

About the guy bragging in the pub that he got off scott-free. Not everybody does this. It is possible that there's a genuine commitment to make things work and to not make such mistakes in the future. If I thought I would do what I did again, I would get out now and save us both the heartache. As for getting off scott-free, future trust at less than 100% is the price that will be paid, and that's going to show itself in all sorts of ways.

About the drip-feeding of revelations. My first 'disclosure' was less than honest. A couple of weeks passed before I really confessed to all the details; number of meetings, perdiod, etc. I thought it was damage limitation but learned that full disclosure needs to happen. He should give you that if it's what you want. You can't deal with it until you know what you're dealing with.

I don't know if this helps. I wish you the minimum of upset until you resolve this one way or the other.

Honestly OP, what are you getting from this relationship? Unfaithful trucker with difficulty communicating and unresolved hang-ups from childhood who gets confused and frightened in the presence of a flirtatious relative, doesn't have any friends or social life and who sleeps with minging relatives and then regrets it seeks lovely lady to make more effort and provide unlimited attention and unconditional love.

I won't lie my relationship with him over the years has been very hard emotionally. But there were the times where he was everything I needed and other times a thing that I loathed and felt did not deserve my love. Very up and down for many years but I tried hoping that he would change. Now this has happened he has changed towards me in that he is more emotional than he has ever been.

Last night we talked and I made him walk me through the whole thing from stArt to finish. He is ashamed and regrets that what he had with her was something he did not need but wanted at the time. The drip feeding was to do with limiting the damage so as not to hurt me further. However the lies on top of lies has been the most destructive in this. He said they were both as bad as each other but he knows that it got to the point where he just could not and would not continue down that road because it was wrong. He does not know why but says there are many reasons like opportunity, it was making him feel good etc... He takes ownership for this mistake and wants desperately to make amends.

I struggle so hard with this that is why I wanted advice with how you move on. My head not my heart tells me that he would never put us through this again. I have made him face up to this responsibility and after thinking about behaviour at the time and anayalis of our life together I can see that he was struggling with his guilt at the time and this was a one time mistake.

The difference from our conversation last night was that for the first time I didn't feel like he was hiding something. If he really regrets his actions and has taken responsibility is this a positive step towards recovery???

How is he going to make amends? Remember its actions not words that you need to be looking at - talking is much easier than doing.

You really need to see this in the round.

You allude to his previous loathsome behaviour and you say you kept hoping he would change. That is why this has happened. It is not an aberration.

He was/is with-holding information and telling lies not just because of the risk of hurting you more. That is a poor second to his primary reason, which is to evade his own culpability.

I think you can only move on to the next stage in what will be a very long process, if you've got all the 'absolutes'. How/Who started it, the build-up, what happened, how many times, where, when, who knew, the reasons he gave her for doing this, whether he really ended it, what he said about you and your marriage, what he told her about his feelings for her. Just the facts - not his rationale for why any of these things happened; that's something you can work on later if you so choose.