Recovering from an affair - 18 months on and need help please.

[WTFnow]

Namechanged.

My DH had an affair. He told me about it and did all the 'right' things (and still does). He bitterly regrets it. We've had couples therapy and he continued to see the therapist until a few weeks ago when I felt I needed to see someone and we can't afford for us both to go.

I thought I'd moved on - better than him tbh as he is really struggling with the guilt and shame. In the light of what he's done since the affair, I have forgiven him. He made awful choices, really bad decisions but he's shifted mountains to try to make it right, all the time knowing that nothing can do that really. He had the opportunity to walk into a job and lifestyle in a country he would love to live in with a younger 'no ties' woman but he faced the consequences of his actions and is trying hard to rebuild what he destroyed - I respect that but..

Lately, I've gone backwards though. I'm angry - really furious inside. I don't like being like this. I've stopped having sex as well, which doesn't help. No pressure at all from him though but I'm sad about it.

Any ideas? Is this normal?

IMO, yes, this is normal. And the solo counselling is a good idea, definitely- you sound like you're really suffering and that isn't fair, it isn't right that you should continue to struggle as a result of his bad choices. Focusing on yourself with the assistance of a professional should help.

Also, just because someone does everything right afterwards doesn't mean you won't still be absolutely raging at points. The affair still happened. In a way it can make things more difficult because it's hard to find a space to express your anger when they're being contrite and punishing themselves. Do you feel you managed to discuss your own feelings enough at couple's counselling?

Anger is definitely a natural emotion in this situation, and it can come from all sorts of places: frustration, disappointment, disgust. Counselling will be a good place to get it out, but do you do any physical sports or activities like kickboxing? Maybe it might be a good idea to try one. Creating something you do for yourself and is yours while also using it to channel your feelings can be a personal boost.

Can you tell us what he has done to help you recover?

What kind of things has he done to work on himself?

Also how has your life changed since the affair?

Are you working on investing in your own life - interests, friends, work, training etc? These will help you rebuild your own self esteem.

You say you have forgiven him and yet you are now angry. Do you think you really have forgiven him? What do you think is holding you back?

Loads of the experts say that 2 years is about the minimum for recovering from an affair, and it can be much longer. So you are doing fine - indeed, better than that, you're doing really well.

I agree with the other posters that continuing to recover yourself is a good idea. Even if you find the reconciliation comes unstuck, you will be more able to cope with whatever life throws at you if you work at being in better shape.

ISayHolmes - thanks for your reply. It helps to think I'm not just going mad. Sadly my pelvis is tricky after SPD when pregnant but I can go on the running machine if I can carve out the time. I should start doing stuff for myself.

I don't feel I dealt with the anger at the time. The focus was on him and us as a couple in the joint therapy. The therapist once asked me - where is your rage in all this? At the time she asked, I really didn't have any.

When I did get angry once, and had a mighty rant, he came out with 'I don't think I love you' which was all to do with the cognitive dissonance he had going on and the fact that he has dreadful issues around being on the reciving end of anger from his childhood where he was emotionally abused by one of his stepfathers. We have talked about that incident since and how he does need to say what he's thinking and feeling but that his timing was, at best, off and at worst downright manipulative.

MadAbout - I have forgiven him. I don't think you need to be ok with something in order to forgive. We have both worked hard to move out of the parent-child roles we were in for most of our marriage. It's my 'line drawn' in that I would leave the marriage rather than go back to that.

He's worked hard to change his usual m.o. of withdrawing from things he finds difficult. He's done a lot of work with the therapist around his scripts and schemas and stuff - facing things that he'd buried so deep he barely knew they were there.

Pity he didn't do that years ago when I asked him to.

You are really acknowledging the hard work he's putting in here. Is he doing the same for you?

Oh yes. Definitely. And he frequently thanks me for it and for giving him a chance to try to make it work. I've lurked on this board and he really isn't an arse who's trying to minimse / justify etc.

In fact, I think he wants it to work more than I do..

And not for self-serving reasons as he had a wonderful alternative life waiting for him to just jump on a plane. It really would have been that easy - it was all laid on.

Why do you think it's 'backwards' to finally acknowledge your feelings? Sounds to me as though you've putting them on hold, repressing them up to now and this represents personal progress..... but also a change in the game. It's totally normal, in the anxiety surrounding a possible break-up, to think you've forgiven, moved on and that you are coping well. But my experience is that, no matter how much you want something rationally, and no matter how much the other person is doing all the right things, you cannot control what you really feel.

I think you finally hate him which and for very good reasons. Rather than judging your honest emotions as 'backwards' therefore, I think it's a more black/white choice of deciding whether you want to live with someone you hate.

BTW.... you may also find you despise him, not simply for being an unfaithful shit, but also for being pathetic and toadying as he tries to get back in your good books. No-one likes a kiss-ass....

I completely reject your opinions Cogito. In this instance they are just wrong. I respect his decision to face the consequences of his own bad decisions and work very hard to change the things about himself that enabled him to go down that road.

This is the response you usually give and it just doesn't apply here. I don't hate him and I definitely don't despise him. I do hate and despise what he did though and there is a very significant dfference between those two things.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to post, though, but please take your own bitternesss elsewhere.

When I did get angry once, and had a mighty rant, he came out with 'I don't think I love you' .... his timing was, at best, off and at worst downright manipulative.

You have never been able to get angry because he manipulates you and tells you he doesn't love you. So you don't get angry because of his manipulations and threats to leave.

That isn't a case of a man trying. That is a case of a man getting what he wants through threats and forcing you to swallow your anger which is due to the pain you have been caused!.

He gets lots and lots of help, counselling etc.

You get to bottle it up and bury it. So it festers.

You have every right to have been screaming angry at him. It is finally happening.

I think you need to find the anger and he needs to feel it so that he really understands how it has affected you completely. Which is is not when you bury it.

I thinnk you're right Xales. We do go through a 'dance' arround the anger thing and we both acknowledge that it neeeds to be dealt with. As I said, with hindsight it's so easy to see iit all. On the other hand, even if i did have a rant now, therre's nothing I would want to say that he doesn't already know because I have already told him exactly how I feel and what I think about what he did - all of it. The pissing on our marriage, the endangering of my health etc etc etc etc. I really have nothing kept back from him.

The screaming bit - well why is that useful when there are many times in our marriage when I have screamed at him abouut far more trivial things. It's a place neither of us wants to go back to. I don't want to be that stern yelling black and white person any more.

And actually, I think this part of the process is more about me. Maybe it's time to take a long hard look at how I was. I take no responsibility for the affair but the state of the marriage previously - well that's another matter.

Sorry for the double letters!

"Thank you for taking the time and trouble to post, though, but please take your own bitternesss elsewhere."

My bitterness? It's not me wondering why I'm so angry and refusing to have sex with someone whilst claiming to find his self-indulgent therapy sessions and personal justification exercise analysis worthy of respect. He screwed someone else and you're trying to suck it up and be rational about it. I get that. But at a very visceral level you feel utterly crap. No amount of rationalising will ever get that out of your head. Good luck :)

There's nothing self indulgent about dealing with full blown childhood emotional abuse. That's plain insulting.

And yes it is worthy of respect as anyone who has been down that route will tell you.

You can't fix his past by allowing you to treat you like crap though.

Take it from someone who has learnt that lesson the hard way.

What happened to your husband, and to the ex I am thinking of, was horrible, but that does not give them permission to stomp over your heart, knowing that they will be forgiven because we are considerate and kind. It is okay to say "I know what you went through was shit, but I can't take this any more".

Yes Sir B I agree. The thing is, the 'treating me like crap' was isolated. I'd have bet he'd be the very last person to have an affair - and so would he. TBH I still struggle to really actually believe it - though I know it's true. He's never treated me like crap, in the conventional sense and has been what most people would call a fab husband and father.
He says he didn't think about me or the kids at all during those 2 weeks when he was away. It was all down to him shutting us out for his own purposes. That is being treated like crap but passively, I suppose.

Oh and he certainly doen't treat me like crap now

I think its all coming out now because you felt unable to (because of his manipulations) to express your feelings.

Although he has worked on himself, the main focus on him and his issues meant he has not helped you to recover properly.

He needs to be able to listen to your feelings and views - this is key to recovery from an affair. How can you have forgiven him when you have not even worked through your emotions and thoughts? Maybe this is something you need to look at in therapy?

It took me around 18 months to forgive my DH for his affair and I do not feel anger at all.

Not only did he have an affair, but when you finally got angry at him, he told you he didn't love you.

Yes, he treats you like crap. Because I really don't think his timing was off, I think that was a deliberate, timed attack at you, when you dared to actually be angry at him for going off to screw someone else.

I would also suggest he sounds like he has some personality issues.

Please keep going to the individual therapy, because if you are willing to accept this kind of treatment, you need some support to see you are worth more.

Thanks Madabout

He does listen and I do tell him. I've taken your point from earlier though and asked him to think about what he has actively done to help me recover over and about sorting his own shit out.

At the moment he is scared that I'm goiing to walk away but I've also asked him to think about what advice he would give one of the kids if they came to him with the same problem.

He knows that if he lets guilt and shame stop him taking the lead with this, it's not going to end well. And even as I'm writing this I can see I'm stepping back into parent mode. Feck.

Why didn't he go to this wonderful new life he had set up?

What made him stay?

He was planning to leave you, so what changed his mind?

WtF, you say you are angry, and you also identify that you couldnt find your anger at the time of the therapy. I can relate to that- when we went I forgave my h in weeks or less, but that anger found me later.

You identify a bad time when you did get angry and he withdrew his affection.

You were very hasty to identify the reason for him saying that as his childhood issues.

You have expressed the anger properly since.

Can you see, WTF, that the anger is there and needs to be expressed? Also, can I say something else from personal experience- I also used to try to 'understand' my husbands shitty behaviour in the light of his poor childhood. IN one sense, that is right, because it is of course the reason behind eg his bad behaviour or his attitude to your anger.

But at the same time , that is not your problem, as a separate individual. When getting out what you feel you need to do it how you need to do it, because you have a past too, which helped to condition your responses as well.

From what you have posted so far, its clear that you have feared articulating and expressing your anger.

Even a couple of months ago- which was 10 months in for us- I had a dreadful row with my h over an insensitive remark he made. He had been a bit blase about the Jimmy Savile affair, when his own infidelity had involved years of sex chatting young women (over 18, but he is 50), and I practically tore his head off.

It just has to come out.

Can I also ask, is he really so completely transformed? I would say in our case that some changes were immediate and some have been more of a process, and are ongoing. Are you also angry about current issues you notice aboout hism, which you didnt before?

You havent expressed the anger properly since.

AThing -The planning was done while he was in another country and having the affair. He worked abroad from time to time and wanted to emigrate there. The job, the lifestyle etc - it was all waiting. He'd had a colleague offer him a shag during one visit (didn't) then the next time he went, he had a 2 week affair with another colleague - he did the chasing. Leaving was planned when he was in the fantasy bubble of his 2-week affair and when he came home, the reality of what he would lose struck him. Also, he couldn't not tell me as he thought it would be wrong not to

He's useully the kind of bloke who'd look like a startled rabbit if a woman flirted with him.