If you have ever experienced a partner being unfaithful.................

[hecantpossiblyunderstand]

My H had an affair and left. We have been together for around 14 years, married for 6 years and have 2 DC's under 5. He wanted to come back and I agreed. Months after, I realised he was still/back in contact with OW. I asked him to leave. We've been separated for a few months now and he is apparently very sorry.

I know that he can't possibly understand the depth of hurt he has caused me and others. I find it difficult to describe/explain to him (and even myself).

I would love to hear from others (so I can show him this thread) who have been betrayed by an unfaithful partner, how they would describe their hurt both in the early days after discovery and later (months/years) on also.

It's one of the worst things you can do to anyone, imo. Let alone someone you made vows to and had children with. It's earth shatteringly awful to go through.

Apart from the emotional carnage it causes, it takes years to sort all the other crap out - it's like someone setting off a bomb in your life - absolutely everything has to change - friendship groups, family dynamics, finances, the utter hell of divorce and remortgaging admin. It never ends..

Not to mention the hell of packing your dc's off every other weekend to spend time with OW, and sharing Xmasses. There's a horrible, permanent feeling of "this isn't what I signed up for.."

Oh family your description has made me cry. What you've said is so true. I'm 10 months on and this week has been hard. I've got the knot back in my stomach and the panicky feelings like I had when I first discovered his affair. I've sobbed my heart out today thinking about what he has done to us and our family. I thought I was starting to forgive him but this has come out of the blue and has made me realise that the path to forgiveness is a lot longer. I just cannot fathom how he could have treated me the way he has. All those memories of our 15 year relationship have been obliterated. It makes me so desperately sad and angry. :(

For me the worst thing is that it has prevented me from trusting people, or myself.

I used to believe I was a good judge of character...now I second guess every decision I make, as I don't truly believe I'm capable of making a sound judgement.

I dislike my body too. After having DC 1 & 2 I accepted the changes to my body, and was empowered that it had produced 2 such amazing people. Since discovering XH's affair while pg with DC3, I have felt let down, and at times, disgusted with my body.

As others have said, I no longer feel angry, just sad. All the lovely times that I looked to sharing with XH will now be marred (hopefully only slightly) by his betrayal. The DC's birthdays, wedding days, even my future grandchildren, will have to be shared with a man who has caused me huge pain...and this will have to be done without causing my children any more distress than they have already had to deal with

Abitwobbly, did she say this to you, or is this what he reported her as saying?

I agree in some ways a bereavement would hurt less. You'd not lose the past as well as the future, if the man you loved were not what his betrayal made him. It makes you doubt your own reality/judgement.

Having said that, if you can break free and move on it isn't half worth it when you're with someone who IS decent. I had a dream the other night that I was with my ex and he was shagging a family friend's 17 year old. Never so happy in my life to wake up and know I was married to my lovely DH, who might one day fall in love with someone else and leave me (never say never) but I truly do not believe would ever lie and cheat and have an affair to do it.

Oh god - reading all these is just so sad. But also so sadly very true. I can relate to all of you.

I will never forget my heart just dropping deep inside me as I read the text that made the penny drop for me. I will never forget the way my stomache churned and the vomit rose in my throat and stayed there whilst I shook uncontrollably.

I vomited loads in the first 48 hours. After that it subsided but I was left with gut wrenching nausea, Throughout all of this the shakes never stopped - for about 2 weeks. I shook constantly. Making a cup of tea or getting dressed was slow and awkward as I shook so much.

I couldnt sleep. The pain in my chest was relentless. When I did sleep it was a brief drifting off - and my dreams were bizzarre, odd and cruel. When I awoke from the brief snoozing episodes, reality would hit me all over again, along with the heart dropping and shakes.

I felt humiliated. I felt stupid. I felt hurt. Anger came and went. Rage came and went. Pain mental and physical just stayed gnawing away at me.

I could not stop the hideous action replays of how I imagined him with his sexual encouters playing in my mind. They just jumped out of nowhere.

I felt just sadness and sorrow.

To this day I look at him and think who the fuck are you? Where did the man I married go? Did I ever know you?

I grieve for someone I am not sure ever really truely existed. I grieve for the life I once had - but then wonder if I ever really did have that life. Looking back I was naive and it was all a lie. I feel like everything I stood for has been shit upon and is just gone. I grieve for the hopes and dreams I thought we both had for our family and our future.

I cannot really put into word how much his betrayal has hurt me. Words dont really come that close to describing it.

I am now damaged goods. I have a sick warped opinion of relationships, men and sex.

Sex is no longer something nice and fun and tender and loving. To me it is vile, dirty, literally about squirting slop into any wet hole, no matter who or what that hole is or belongs to. I see sex as something that causes hurt and damage and greed and a selfish gratification.

I look at people - random people in the street in Sainsburys and my friends and think - wonder if he or she is/has fucked someone behind his/her back. Are they really happy.

I see everything in a soiled horrible negative fucked up way.

4 years on - I am finally having some kind of breakdown. Atm I have pretty much withdrawn from real life and its actually a relief.

itsallgonetitsup. Most of what you said, rings true for me.

My Dh cheated on me for three years. For three years I felt neglected and it never occurred to him to stop the affair (with a friend). I suspected but he said I was wrong. All the respect I had for him, gone in an instant.

Two years later and a few more incidents with OW, I will never see him the way I did before. He swore on my children's life, things which now I know were not true. I don't have any respect for him. We were best friends but now I don't tell him everything or confide in him. He says he loves me but I just don't feel it.

Reading all these posts brings back the memories. The anxiety attacks, sickness, emptyness, the disbelief that he could do this to me. He was my rock that he broke. Crying every time I had a shower, in fact crying like I have never cried before. The hurt and humiliation will never be forgotten, it's part of me now. I feel like the last five years have been taken away from me.

Terribly lonely and alone. Craving some affection and love.

I'm biding time for the DCs.

When I first found out (but not the full story) I felt sick and shaky all over but once I'd confronted DH I recovered relatively quickly...or thought I did. Went into a frantic mode of repairing the relationship, improving my appearance, making everything great, dates and holidays etc. After the realisation of the bigger picture of deceit on his part and the fact that things hadn't actually changed a few months later I descended into a state remarkably close to what others have described. The closest feeling is bereavement. Mind working like a machine, not eating, not sleeping, body aching all over, almost all normal activity affected. My limbs were numb to the extent that I was bathing 2 - 3 times per day to get some feeling into them. Constant headaches and right down my spine, was taking headache tablets round the clock. Uncontrollable shaking and jerky body. Funny thing was that although I felt terrible physically and emotionally, my brain was working very fast and hard and I never felt depressed. I can remember at the time feeling very surprised that I wasn't depressed. Frantically wrote things down (I've got books and books of this stuff - outpourings, not to mention MN posts!) and didn't really talk to anyone except my kids (didn't confide in them, just everyday talking - managed to keep them fed and turning up for school) for a good couple of weeks. I did keep going to work too but kept quite erratic hours during this time. Next entered a period of relief and almost elation after I'd decided that the relationship was over and DH left the house. Started socialising and doing things I found difficult with DH around. Redecorated most of the house within space of a few days - i.e. probably unhealthily manic, but with a good result (nice new bedroom especially!). Next developed a huge crush on a friend and became obsessed with that for a while. Quite a lot of wavering followed but not enough to ask DH back. Now bit more chilled and taking time to enjoy life and work out what's next. Still have bad days. Now can sometimes feel guilty about how little I miss DH and the relationship. I doubt my ability to love someone properly if I can get over it that quickly. I've been surprised that I don't seem to find him physically attractive any more and when I see him I don't yearn to be with him. In fact, I struggle to find any small talk when I drop off the kids with him and I sometimes wonder what we used to talk about. This is despite having a close friendship, regular and fulfilling sexual relationship, used to phone each other every day when I was working and seemed like we were having fun at the time.

The other side of it is though, the realisation of just how much I'd put up with over the years and how unreasonably the terms of our relationship were. This has had a positive effect in that I now know how optimistic, resilient and resourceful I am; but negative too in that I don't exactly respect myself for what I allowed to happen (not the infidelity, I'm talking about the wider issue of him taking the piss out of me constantly and me pandering to that).

I'm 9 years on from the initial discovery of my ex-H's affair and whilst I would say the acute pain of the intial discovery was awful, I am not sure it is as bad as 9 years of disappointment over what an arse he is to DS & DD and how tightfisted he has been about their maintenance, despite being very well paid.
He is like a millstone around my neck, that I will have to continue to interact with for the next 8 years until my youngest is 18.

Hi I'm a new poster- long time lurker! :)

I actually have a different POV slightly and would like your husband to hear about it, because for about five years during my late teens and early twenties I was "The Other Woman" and had a long term affair with an older man, who had been my teacher, and who was married. It went on for a long time because he was playing both me and his wife like fiddles.

When it all came out in the end and he lost his job and she said she was leaving and I didn't want to know either (unsurprisingly he'd been telling a lot of lies!) it truly seemed he had got what he deserved as he had broken not just his wife's heart but mine too. Unfortunately she took him back, but within just months he was back on at me, telling me he missed me and wanted me back etc. I had been young and weak and stupid but learnt the hard way and didn't want anything more to do with him, so went straight to his wife and told her that he was at it again. She threw him out again, but eventually took him back for a second time.

I cut off all contact and later heard through a friend that they are still together, ten years later, and that he actually ended up getting another girl pregnant a few years after our affair. Men like this, I truly believe, never change. I am not from the school of 'all men are bastards', but if anyone cheats on their partner for a sustained period of time and THEN has the cheek to betray their trust AGAIN when the partner has taken them back, in my opinion they deserve a life of lone ready meals.

I can't stress enough how little respect I have for these men, and how truly I believe that the women in their lives, wives and mistresses, deserve better.

Shock. Numb, still so numb, felt nothing like I expected, no anger, blamed myself initially(have now realised it was his choice not something I did)
Felt like my whole life had been a lie, that everything he had ever said or done, all the times we had enjoyed had been fake. Unable to see more than a few hours, couldn't plan for the future, mourning the future we had lost. Definate grief. But probably worst thing is the lasting legacy-I will NEVER trust another man again.
x

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has posted since I last did. It has been absolutely heart breaking reading this thread. In a way it all sounds much worse when I read about it happening to someone else. I think I block a lot it and don't dwell on it too much.

Dictionarydiva. Thank you in particular. It was very interesting to hear from the 'other side of the fence'.

itsallgonetitsup. I'm so sorry to read your post. It sounds as if you are having the most awful time. I'm guessing from your post that you are still with your H?

Start a new thread to get some good support or PM me if you like.

Thanks to everyone who posted here. We're 6 months after the revelation and apart from a few outbursts, I was wondering what had happened to my anger. Reading this last night brought everything back into sharp focus and I'm so glad it did. I asked my OH to read it and follow the link given earlier because I wanted him to understand what it felt like.

Then I told him exactly what I thought of him and his behaviour. Absolutely no holds barred. I wanted to email the OW a link to this page. Not in anger but to say, look, this is what that 'bit of fun' caused. She didn't break marriage vows and he is obviously the one to blame but as decent human beings, shouldn't we think of the consequences of our actions?
I didn't bother in the end.

I've been mugged and burgled (twice). Both my parents died far too young but this is worse. It's strange that the muggers and burglars would have been punished if they'd been caught and if my OH had punched me, I could ring the police. Yet he can devastate my past, present and future and very self utterly and there's no 'justice' to call on.

hecantpossiblyunderstand - thank you. I have a few threads on here about my predicament.

Yes - I am still with him. Its like a self torture. I am ashamed to admit I stayed. My reasons for STILL being here are not totally honourable. Its complicated and I am desperate to leave.

Right now I am in a pit. A massive black hole. I think I am pretty much at rock bottom. For the first time since that fateful New Years Eve of 2007 I have let myself go totally emotionally. Before now I have held myself back from plummeting. It is actually a huge relief to allow myself to wallow in my misery at how fucked up my life now is.

I want to leave and certainly paln to do so. I just dont have the emotional gumption to do anything about it right now. I wont start another thread just yet as I dont think I can take anyone being firm or giving me some cold hard facts just now and people on here have moreless told me what I need to do on my other threads but I have just been too scared to do it.

i dont intend to wallow and be like this for ever. I hope one day I can pull myself out of this black hole but for me I just want to wallow and after 4 years of trying to put on a brave face and hide the dirty secret of my fucked up marriage from the RL world, I think I need and deserve this time.

Thanks though for just letting me put my feelings down - its good to vent sometimes.

All of the above. All of the above, plus that I, or he, or I (?) managed to make it all my fault; that because I am such a shit person, that because I am an abusive person, that I made this happen. That is what I can't get over, really, because if I am, where does that leave my child? The well of doubt and hurt and pain and shame and guilt is never exhausted.

Hugs to everyone on this thread.

It makes me feel less insane that I am not the only one who feels so terrible, not so alone.

A lot of inspirational women on this thread. I want to repeat what I said before ..... Women we all deserve better.

I did with my EX(!) husband. It wasn't what ended our relationship but highlighted what we both knew - it wasn't working. At the time I was so disgusted with him and with myself for putting up with it. However now I don't feel anything about it as I have moved on - although this took some very big changes in my life (I now live in Asia being one of them!).

His behaviour has changed the way I view the world. I used to think the vast majority of people were basically good. He's the type of man that no one would think could ever do such a horrible, selfish thing. Basically, if even he can do that, anyone can. My sunny faith in human nature has been taken away.

Rightfedup, I agree with you there. For me, the shock that my particular h could have done this, and lied and lied (and gaslighted me eventually) for nearly 6 years before I found out about his vast array of internet sex chats was stunning to me.

You just wouldnt expect it from Mr socialist good dad, good worker, affair diasapprover, etc etc.

It makes you wonder who they really are, and who you are if you believed them for so long. A bit of a shock after 22 years.

My ExP was unfaithful for the first time when our DD was 3 months old. I found out about the 2nd OW 2 weeks before Xmas. Found photos, emails texts from both of them. I have a huge hole in my chest where my heart used to be. I feel so utterly betrayed, knowing he was actively planning to meet them, his anticipation, excitement. Then coming home to me and playing happy familys. I try and suppress these thoughts, but they take me by surprise and I feel physically sick. I have no interest in anything. I feel like I'm on autopilot. How he could look me in the eye and lie, time and time againg. He wants us to be amicable....I can't even look at him. He's blown my life, my DCs life apart. He's currently at my house, packing, leaving tonight. I dont know what I'm coming home to. How can someone you love be so utterly, utterly cruel?

Sorry to hear you're having to go through that Rebekmah I'm just 4 weeks ahead of you so know what you are going through x