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?

Perhaps it's harder for you because the marriage seemed OK and the family life good when he was actually cheating. It throws your judgement of what is a functioning relationship, and rebuilding shattered trust is hard. Setbacks are common, but very hard to deal with.

If you still want him, it's OK to hang on in there, even when vulnerabilities arise again. And the posters who say keep working on yourself are spot on. It might keep you together, it might make you decide that actually this reconciliation is not working. But investing in yourself (and being kind to yourself) is and will remain a good thing to do.

Five - it took me the best part of a year to feel that I forgave him. Also, I have expressed how hurt and angry I am. He has seen me howling with grief. Also, I have told him all about how angry I feel and why - I just haven't ranted at him. If I ranted, there would be nothing new in it as I have told him how I feel and why. He knows I am angry and why and what exactly I am angry about. I don't know what more to say about that really.

It is tricky to shift ingrained patterns of behaviour though. I don't expect - or necessarily want - a transformation. I think you're right about some changes being immediate and some are a process.

Very wise words Edith. Thank you. Yes I did feel that my faith in my own judgement and, really, in the whole world was completely shattered for a while.

"Also, he couldn't not tell me as he thought it would be wrong not to "

Do you wish he hadn't?

I think it says a lot for him as a person, and for his respect for you, that he made that decision regardless of his own wish to save the relationship. I know others disagree with that view.

So he never really planned to leave you? The whole thing was just a self-indulgent fantasy while he was away?

What an utter fool. It must be so maddening to feel so much unnecessary pain because of such an incredible lapse of judgment.

"If I ranted, there would be nothing new in it as I have told him how I feel and why."

Sometimes the medium is the message. The same information given in rant form would give a very different impression.

I think the worst thing you've described him doing is withdrawing his love on the one occasion you let yourself rant.

For a repentant man who had caused so much pain to you that was really, really unfair.

I don't think I could move forward until I knew his love for me would withstand an angry rant or two.

I really think it's time for you to focus on yourself and what you want to do. It sounds like you've put in a whole lot of work on your marriage and relationship and all the issues surrounding it, and have gone through the affair over and over again. It seems like the "you" has been a bit lost in all of that. I'm not saying go off and be selfish, but for goodness sake carve some space for what you want to do. Where do you want to be in five years time? What do you want to have achieved or done? It's okay to look after number 1 a bit and do things you may have been putting off- interests and hobbies and so on. Embrace some of these things :)

(Actually, I think I might be saying go off and be selfish. There's nothing wrong with a bit of it, it's just giving yourself permission that's the hard thing).

I agree with you OP that it's necessary and courageous for someone to revisit a painful past and learn how it might have impacted on adult decisions.

But having seen you observe that you used to have a parent-child relationship, it's often a tricky balance for people who are used to being the child, to own their past and not wallow in it at the expense of personal adult responsibility.

Sometimes shame and guilt get in the way of people taking full responsibility for their actions and are 'holding' mechanisms for people to keep hiding from harsh realities.

So is it possible that you're stuck at the moment in a situation where there is remorse, atonement and the appearance of self-awareness, but deep down you suspect there are issues your partner has yet to fully confront about himself?

You're wise to describe this as a dance. It will take enormous self-control on your part not to make your usual moves and steps and take the lead. I suspect at some level you suspect that left to his own devices, he will not make the right moves or steps and this has led to you feeling frustrated and angry. Intuitively you now know that the right thing to do is to step back and watch, but you fear that without your involvement he will do the wrong thing.

Thanks for all your replies.
AThing - no I don't wish he'd kept quiet about it. It's just that I wish he hadn't done the 'wong thing' in sleeping with the OW in the first place. And I agree that his 'blocking' was a horrible thing to do. I was probaly having that very conversation with him as you were typing the post I have told him that before but maybe not as strongly as I have done today. He did hide behind the 'The therapist said I need to say what I feel - I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't' position previously but I have said that he should have picked his moment and let me finish what I wanted to get off my chest first. In fact, the more I think about it, the crosser I am about that.

ISayHolmes - you are right and I will. I do have a strong smell of the burning martyr about me some times - too much of the self sacrifice going on and it's not healthy.

I think you're right about the 'holding mechanism' Charbon. But how does a person come to terms with the devastation they have caused? And how do I know that he has?

I don't know that there are right moves and wrong moves if we are both being open and honest. We both agree on what we want, we just don't know how to get there.

I know it's a bit of a tangent, but I think you were out of order in your response to Cogito, whose opinion I think is very often spot on. It appears that you are directing your anger at others, when it should be your H.

The best way of someone coming to terms with devastation at their own hands is to look honestly at how and why he gave himself permission to do it. You imply that he has gone back into his childhood and recognised survival mechanisms that were suitable for a child but not the adult he became, but there are possibly some adult behaviours and personality traits that he might be less comfortable with exploring, because the blame for them cannot be exclusively laid at the door of an abusive or neglectful childhood.

I'm interested in the fact that he turned down one approach and then shortly afterwards, made an approach himself to someone different. His thought processes during that interval would be interesting to hear because within them there will be clues to pre-existent personality traits. For example someone who said to himself 'why not? I'm entitled to an adventure' suggests someone who has in the past chosen unwise and self-harming survival mechanisms that can harm others as well as oneself. Addictions of any kind - of the 'quick-hit' variety like porn, drinking, gambling, smoking or drugs fall into this category, but these are often conducted at the expense of others' wellbeing too.

You'll know when he has come to terms with his own personal responsibility for this when he starts initiating conversations about the links he has made with other events from his adult past that typified the affair-related behaviours of selfishness and a sense of entitlement. This might involve further revelations for you about things that are still hidden. For example he might recall a time when he did something secretive that he knew you'd disapprove of, but he kept hidden out of a childish desire to have a secret and because he feared retribution. Or he might recall a thought process that in retrospect he sees now was very selfish. This can be about very mundane issues, such as staying out to avoid the bed and bathtime routine, or getting out of the washing-up. If it also involved thought processes such as 'I work hard, I'm entitled to some rest' then he's made the necessary link.

Thanks Charbon. As far as he has said, the thought processes between the 2 visits were that he saw himself as attractive and was surprised by the attention. He started fantasising about her and knew when he got on the plane that he would try to chat her up. By then though, she was with another bloke but he says he'd set himself up for shagging someone else by exaggerating anything negative about me and the kids and squashing anything positive.

He thinks the first proper error he made was in not telling me about the first woman because he thought I'd 'forbid' him to go to that country again and he really wanted to go. He is highly appreciated at work there but not here and he loves the place. And he did feel entitled. Interestingly he has had addictions to fags and dope but kicked those when I did. I think those were around a damping down of feelings rather than a 'quick hit'.

He admits that he has projected a lot of the bad things about his stepfather on to me unfairly during the marriage.

He doesn't initiate conversations about the affair - or ask me how I'm doing with it, even though I've told him that I need him to do that as it gives me 'pemission' to discuss it. He's fine if I bring it up but he doesn't initiate so from your post, I don't think he has moved far enough down that road yet.

No he hasn't.

He hasn't been entirely truthful about his thought processes either, in my view.

There was another reason he didn't tell you about the first woman. Because had he told you, as long as you were convinced that although understandably flattered he would turn down a second opportunity, I doubt that you would have 'forbidden' him to go. His rationale however puts you firmly into controlling parent mode, doesn't it?

What he perhaps hasn't said was that he didn't want to take the risk of you being adult and mature about this and passing the responsibility back on to him for any decisions he might make. Because that decision would have always been to do what he really wanted to do - have sex with someone else. But it would have been much harder for him to do it if you'd made it his responsibility, so he didn't tell you and could therefore claim that it 'just happened because it felt good'.

There are lots of variations of this trade-off that puts the responsibility for a secret or a lie on to the person who is being deceived, rather than the deceiver.

I didn't tell you I was meeting this woman for a drink - because I knew you'd get the wrong idea and come to the wrong conclusions.

I didn't tell you I use porn, because you'd get hysterical and come to the wrong conclusions about why I do it.

The only real reason people don't tell a partner about something is because they want to carry on with the secretive behaviour without taking any responsibility for that decision.

Yes I completely agree that's why he didn't tell me. In fact, I'm surprised he didn't try to chat the first woman up and have sex with her when they were at a party later in the same visit, except that the party was at someone's house and a work colleague he respects was also there so it would have been much less easy to arrange.

I think some of what Cogito says applies to me. My H had an affair which I found out about almost 5 months ago. Its been up and down since then. I haven't forgiven him, and don't think I ever will but thought/hoped I might be able to live with it.

For a while I did but now I'm finding the anger is building up inside me. I love him/hate him/despite him all at once. I was all ready to issue divorce proceedings around a month ago but something stopped me. I know I'm running out of time (need to petition before start of January to go on adultery) and am so torn.

He has been a complete and utter bastard the past few days, ruining everything for me and the children. We were so excited about buying the tree yesterday and putting up decorations and then christmas shopping and he had to ruin it.

I know some do survive affairs and I have so much respect for them. I just can't do it myself. A friend asked me a few days ago if I saw me growing old with him and my immediate response was 'no way'. I'm tolerating for the sake of the children and that is wrong.

OP, I hope you find the right decision for you

"he thought I'd 'forbid' him to go to that country again"

That's a pretty weird assertion.

Are you normally the sort of woman that would forbid her husband going to a country because a woman there came onto her husband?

How insulted do you feel to be cast in the role of controlling tyrant so he can justify his affair as starting with a "mistake"?

Not telling you wasn't a mistake, it was a deliberate lie.

I can see why an honest man would have chosen not to tell his wife about an approach he rejected - it could seem unimportant.

But in his case by the time he came home he regretted that he had rejected her and that is why he didn't tell you.

He didn't think you would forbid an honest man with good intentions from going away

He knew that if you knew that he planned to go back and shag her that you would not be happy with that.

His first mistake was before that, he had already given himself permission to go back and cheat.

But his telling makes his "first mistake" partly your fault.

"He did hide behind the 'The therapist said I need to say what I feel - I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't' position previously but I have said that he should have picked his moment and let me finish what I wanted to get off my chest first."

Self-pitying twattery.

I don't know how you didn't have a special rant all about that.

He gets to cheat on his wife, get lots of attention because of his difficult childhood, and then when the wife he hurt dares to get angry he says he doesn't love her, and THEN when called on his selfishness says he had to act in a controlling and manipulative way because of his therapy?!

Seems like he deflected the issue of him treating you like shit by making what should have been your recovery from his affair into his recovery from his own childhood.

His childhood abuse may be relevant, but it is not the whole story here and neither is it an excuse.

I'm not surprised you feel angry. I feel cross just thinking of that appalling reaction to the pain he freely chose to cause you in pursuit of his own enjoyment.

MOSagain I'm really sorry that this happened to you. It's foul, isn't it. I think I'd be more tempted to cut my losses in your situation too if he's being generally horrible.

AThing Are you normally the sort of woman that would forbid her husband going to a country because a woman there came onto her husband? erm, not in quite such an obvious fashion but maybe yes. I had become extremely fed up of him going abroad and leaving me unsupported to deal with everything at home. There was no pressure on him to go and often no financial benefit to the family either. And he knows now how selfish that was but I encouraged it at the start.
I used to get hugely angry about it because of unresolved issues from my own childhood and being left to cope in a new town with 2 kids under 2 while he worked in London and I had PND. (Though he had to work away to pay the mortgage that time) So yes, that might have been the point at which I finally drew the line.

And I could quite easily have been cast in the role of tyrant by someone (us included) who didn't understand how corrosive parent- child relationships can be to both partners and that it is something they both collude in to a greater or lesser extent. I used to come across as domineering and bossy. And he does understand that it was a lie by deliberate omission and is very regretful of that.

Self-pitying twattery. I agree.

I don't know how you didn't have a special rant all about that. Because I'm sick of ranting. I have ranted all my life - and I am sick of being that person - with anyone. It scared the life out of me when my father did it and yet I copied his behaviour. I've seen the look in my kids eyes when I've done the same to them. I hate it and I won't be doing it again if I can help it because there are ways to communicate with people that are just as effective and won't make me feel like shit about myself. I'm working really hard on this change in myself - for me - and I will not let his stupid affair drag me back into that. I never thought I would be able to control my temper. It is a good result of our therapy and I'm keeping it. It actually makes me feel empowered.

I do get what you're saying and in many ways you're right but as we're both trying to work through difficult childhood issues and see how the patterns in our marriage have worked, this is new ground for us and I've probably got more sympathy for him because I've seen how hard he's trying - not always successful and I have written the worst failures here - but trying. And so am I.

Thanks for your though. I find it strangely comforting

"I never thought I would be able to control my temper. It is a good result of our therapy and I'm keeping it. It actually makes me feel empowered."

:)

It should. And you should be proud of that.

Is therapy helping you find better ways to deal with and communicate your anger?

Are you angry at your husband or at the stupid mistake he made that can never be taken back?

Can I offer you some reassurance and support because actually I think you're doing really well.

What you're saying is that you know it's okay to be angry, as long as that anger is discharged in ways that are safe to you and others and when it gets results - either in making you feel better or when it's appropriate for someone to know you're angry and why.

From what you're saying though, you've got some conflicted scripts going on about your husband's core character and personality. Initially you were implying that this was out of character, but in more recent posts you've alluded to him escaping from the hard work of family life and taking trips that weren't entirely necessary but left you with much of the shitwork and responsibility for the children.

I do understand that conflict, because so often selfishness and childish behaviours get bargained away as being discrete issues without realising how much they are a portent of what's to come. An affair or an act of infidelity never happens in a vacuum though - there are always behaviours and attitudes that lead up to it. It's often only with hindsight that people see it though. I hope that you can but actually it's more important that he sees it and links up all his behaviours and notices the pattern.

AThing - I'm angry at both. I'm angry that he did those things and made those choices. I'm angry that he's not asking me how I'm feeling about the affair and our relationship now, even though I've asked him to do that.

I'm also angry about the stupid mistake he made that I'm powerless to do anything about. Like when someone dies - you can want and want until you almost set yourself alight but you can't bring them back or change the fact that they have died.

Charbon - thanks so much for yor reassurance. And you're right about the bargaining away. He always came across as solid and dependable - good around the house and 'hands on' with the kids, but I can see with hindsight that it was a perception rather than a solid truth.

To be fair, he also encouraged me to take a trip that happened indirectly through my work when I thought it would be out of my reach. I encouraged him to put himself forward for the project knowing he would go abroad because I wanted him to have some reward for going into a job he didn't like for years so I could be home with the kids more - which is what I wanted. I just wanted him to have something nice - an adventure like he had given me. Of course, now I know that if he hadn't liked his job, he should have found another one instead of being miserable for years - he should have taken responsibility for his own happiness with that. Ooo - seeing patterns.

I'm going to come in from a different angle here. Feel free to ignore, I'm no guru, but it's just something that is leaping out at me from this thread.

It seems to me from what you have written that your DH is sorry, truly sorry not just saying 'sorry', and that despite everything you do want to make your marriage work.

If those assertions are correct then you HAVE to let go now. Yes, it is tempting to get angry. It is 'safe' now, as he has committed to you. When this was new and raw and you were frightened he would leave, you probably suppressed that anger, as an angry wife isn't a big attraction. Had you been spitting blood, life with the OW might have seemed like a much easier option.

I can't see how this anger is helping you, or your marriage. Going over and over the past, what happened, and why - it's destructive. It is stopping you from moving on. Why do you feel the need to do this? Is it about punishing your DH for what he did, maybe making him feel insecure that you may leave in the same way that he made you feel insecure? I don't know, I can't know, only you can.

I've seen marriages recover from infidelity, and marriages fail. The couples that make it are the ones that focus their energy on starting again, investing each other, and moving on. Those that continue to blame, accuse, obsess, analyse, they get stuck, and they kill whatever was left.

If you know in your heart that you want to stay with your DH stop punishing him and yourself. Redirect your energy. Stop going over the past. It happened, you can't change it, but you can build something new from the rubble and be kinder more considered partners in the future.

Shirley Glass says in her book that it is most usually the person who is giving least to the relationship who has an affair. It is certainly true in our case that my h was giving a lot less, leaving me to do most of the child and home related stuff. And spending quite a few weekends in the home office, 'working', then coming out in time for a football match on the telly.

Worcester - in your 4th paragraph. That's how I feel and why I've started to see a therapist myself. I thought I had let it go and I can see it's destructive - to my own wellbeing as well as the marriage. However, saying sorry isn't enough. It's just words. I don't want to go over and over the details of the affair, I just want him to ask me maybe once a fortnight or so, how I'm doing with it. By ignoring my openly stated need for him to do this - and it isn't a big ask, really - he's giving me the message that his need to avoid emotional discomfort is more important than any wish to check I'm ok. He did ask once, I said it was quite good at the mo and the whole conversation lasted about 3 mins and was very positive. He didn't ask again, despite me saying that I appreciated it and that it was comforting that he was checking.

Now that's not someone who has really taken responsibilty for the hurt they've caused, is it?

He did the same avoidance thing when he injured someone in the car. He left it all to the insurance and didn't make contact later to apologise and check how the person was doing. There was never doubt about fault.

If we are to move on and be kinder, then I need that reassurance that my reasonable needs will be met and that we will not go back to parent-child where it was all about his needs. I talk a lot more about how things are now rather than raking over the details of the past. If the marriage fails it will be because of our actions/inactions now - not because of the affair.

Five - loved that book too

And the need for punishment is huge for him, according to his therapist. I'm not that into it really.

WTF - I do get what you are saying and I agree totally that its actions, not words that really count and that its about taking full responsibility for the pain he has caused and how the betrayer needs to become the rebuilder (Linda MacDonald's How to Help your Spouse Recover)

The parent-child roles thing is also a familiar story for me. Ditto re my DH being the one giving least to the relationship, especially during the past few years prior to the affair.

Have you talked to him about what you have just written here?

One of the things I did was to write him a letter pouring out my feelings and that really helped.