6 months after affair...

[swannylovesu]

...and today we moved home. OW lived 4 doors away as was my "best friend". So its been an interesting few months. DH is still mortifies by his behaviour and i am still healing, but today for the first time this year i can honestly say we might just get over this. Just wanted to share x

Yes, it's my experience and I never want to be on a pedestal ever again. I want to be treated like a living breathing human being with her own thoughts, feelings and foibles. You put objects on a pedestal, not people.

Sounds like your experience was not a good one then. Im treated really well in every way and I treat him the same.

If it takes for him to have an affair to treat you really well you do have to wonder how long he'll be able to keep that up though, being on best behaviour is hard work where as just being relaxed and normal around each other you might expect to have more longevity.

It's not about being on a pedestal or unequal relationships, it's about redressing the balance and reconnecting. It isn't even about being on best behaviour or getting away with it. What it is about is starting again, with love, respect, equality and hope, on both sides.

One of the hardest things to deal with after an affair is the negativity of other women. I've re-found a best friend in my husband, but lost close female friends over this.

mosan the op is sharing her story of starting afresh with her oh who is doing all he can to repair the marriage he tore apart. That's a good thing surely. She is six months in and her husband is just showing her how much she means to him. I'm sure it will settle down to a more relaxed way soon. Sometimes it does take the shock of an affair to make people realise what they have nearly lost and bring people to their senses. Some can be rebuilt if both are willing and some can't.

You've probably lost good female friends because they dear you will be let down again and you don't want to hear it.

I think a few of you need to google hysterical bonding.

Some men fight for their marriage and some don't.

I wish you every luck in keeping your family and relationship together. As someone else said, it can take a very long time to fully heal - and sometimes the person who had the affair thinks "its all fine now" - I needn't keep on being "good" when you haven't really moved on fully. Both of you need to keep working at it -but make sure its not used as a stick to beat him with every time he does something you don't like

Chub you don't know me or my situation, so that's a fairly big assumption to make. I'm extremely grounded and way past the hysterical bonding point. I initially left my husband, filed for divorce and got on with my life. I actually just wanted us both to be happy, and to be honest I was. In some ways I was quite excited about buying my own home, and starting again.

What the affair did was start us talking, and when separated we became very good friends again. We messed up our marriage because we didn't talk about problems, which led to misunderstandings... that old chestnut. We'd made massive assumptions and misjudgements.

I have lost friends yes. Some seemed absolutely thrilled that my oh so perfect life had fallen apart and almost exhilarated by the drama. Others seem angry that my marriage is one of the ones that made it when theirs didn't. It has been quite an eye opener.

I don't fear I will be let down, because 1. I very much doubt it will happen for all manner of reasons, and 2. Even if it did I'll be fine. I was before.

The relationships forum can be quite extreme. I posted on here at the time asking for support. The vitriol I got was scary. I was hurting, vulnerable, unsure where to turn and got a load of verbal abuse at my desire not to hate him or her. I really didn't. I wished them luck, and it was genuine. I really didn't need to be told that made me a weak feeble being with no self esteem. Before the affair I had low self esteem. After I felt a bit invincible. Strange but true.

"He's sorry, disgusted with himself, and totally humiliated. He has told me everything, because he knows that if he doesn't I won't stay. For me part of the healing process was knowing there were no more secrets. It's the secrets and lies that hurt, not the sex. Sex is sex, and can mean nothing. The effort taken to conceal an affair is something else."

This is the truth, and although my husband has gone to the point of 'obduracy' (IC), it was THIS that I longed for, and with THIS I could have healed.

I am on another path (filing for divorce), but I don't regret my marriage for a single second. My children are the best gift ever. It wasn't all bad and he wasn't all bad.

I have to stop trying to control things and make him what I want to be; but let go and trust in the future, and allow him to be what he needs to be. He has his reasons for being the way he is, and they originate waaaay before I met him, probably between the ages of 18 months - 5 years. It must be awful to hate yourself so much that you will go to destructive lengths to avoid shame and accountability; but I need to accept and honour that that is who he is.

Affairs are unbelievably shit. They change you forever. But they become part of your history and it is what you do with that history that counts.

Worcestershire Sauce, I also got vitriol when I posted against the mantra! MN doesn't approve of self-delusion!

I was trying to explain that I was staying in order to consolidate (resources, training) and learn to emotionally detach.

I got told I had a personality disorder, was a child abuser, was drunk, and goodness knows what else.

When I posted later that Lundy Bancroft also advocated staying whilst gathering strength and resources if that is what you need to do, I got told I was twisted inauthentic and guilty of fraudulent reporting. By someone who airily stated they had never read the book.

So MN are right to puncture delusion, but they are not always right! I am not the same person I was when I received the information that my marriage was not what I thought it was and he was not who I thought he was. I worked very hard on 'me' stuff, it has paid off and I am now ready to embrace the unknown.

If not one of your friends had good motivations in their reservations about your reunion you obviously need better friends.

There is no MN mantra. Just a lot of collective experience.

Chub you are right, if that were true I would indeed need better friends . The experience has however taught me who my real friends are. Support has come from quite unlikely places (my mum for one, who I thought would string him up).

Wellwobbly I like your attitude, you sound in a good place now. Sometimes in marriages it is easy to drift along and turn into a partner and lose ourselves. I did. Although we are on different tracks I think we share one thing - we've found 'us' again. Good luck.

Well I think it may be a little wrong headed to assume that only those that endorse your reconciliation are your real friends, but good luck to you.

Chub What's your story? Why are you so sure you know better about my situation than I do? I have had some very weird and nasty reactions from people I thought were friends. I have had some great support from people who obviously are. By support a mean rational positivity with appropriate caveats. My marriage is no more water tight than anyone else's on here -anything could happen. I can be pretty damn sure that if we do split in future it won't be about this. Any big upset can cause people to reassess, and reconnect, not just an affair.

I've come out of it much much stronger, much much happier, and much much less dependent. Good things.

We're a balanced couple now, neither one of us clings on desperately, we're here because we want to be, but know we could leave if we didn't.

Sorry OP bit of a hijack. I just wanted you to hear some positive stories. You can survive if you both want to, but it will be hard. You will have bad days, for a long long time, and how your partner reacts to those will be quite telling. If he believes you should be over it, and isn't supportive, then perhaps he doesn't see it as a big deal. If he is just there for you, you'll get through it. Good luck.

I don't assume I know better at all. I'd just be very surprised if all the people who expressed reservation about your reconciliation were motivated by schadenfreude/envy/bitterness or whatever. Clearly this is the thread for poster girls for reconciliation only. Good luck. Sincerely.

I never said all. Of course people have reservations. I have reservations! Yes, this is a thread about reconciliation. It does happen.

The point is you can be happy again, and you can actually have a healthier relationship afterwards. Or it can be the end. Life, rich tapestry etc

Affairs happen for different reasons and are resolved in different ways. Personality and temperament of the people who get through it are probably far removed from the personality and temperament of those that don't.

Some probably find things acceptable that I wouldn't tolerate. Difference is, I wouldn't pull them down for it - I'd just move past it. I'm not thick and don't suffer from any personality disorder. I'm an optimist - unashamedly and blatantly. His affair did not make me lose faith in humanity or myself. It made me feel shit but I knew I'd get back up, with or without him.

It seem's to me that it's not the optimists that wear the rose-tinted spectacles and fool themselves, it's the people who can't accept that no-one is infallible.

Sorry, I mean some things find things acceptable from their partner that I wouldn't tolerate.

Some people (It's too early for me, clearly.)

Agree it depends on a whole range of circumstances imo.

For example if dp hadn't been totally transparent and utterly devastated, if he'd made light of what he'd done and lost patience we wouldn't be together now. He's worked so very hard to repair the damage, it's been work in progress but relationships can work after a betrayal.

The betrayer has to show complete remorse, transparency and patience and the betrayed has to be able (in time) to move forward (albeit slowly in my case) and allow the betrayer to prove that they can change, forgiving them in time to allow themselves to move forward.

I totally agree Ladies. I too am an optimist in life and after the initial devastating blow and a few weeks not knowing who I was anymore and WTF was going on I took myself in hand and worked on me. Bought new clothes, changed my hair, bought things to make me feel happier like a good book or some new makeup. Went out with friends where I was allowed to let of steam, read lots and lots of books and generally decided that life will be ok if I am on my own again. Deciding to try again took me awhile (he was courting me all over again) but I thought I can start a new relationship with this man who I still love and I have known for 20 years or I can start a new relationship with another man whom I know nothing about.......!! For me there was no contest. I also looked deep inside for although I am not to blame in any way for him having an affair, I am equally to blame for the breakdown in our relationship in the years prior to the affair. I learned where we had lost each other and what I wanted from a new relationship.
Affairs are mind blowingly devastating. They throw your whole life, present and past into doubt and cause the most awful pain imaginable but they also can be a huge wake up call for you and to re evaluate your life and what you want from it.

Rules, your recovery is so similar to mine with regards to being kind to yourself, reading (Shirley Glass was my favourite and helped so much during those first few dark months), out with friends and generally gaining in confidence again after such a bitter body blow and it is as you say such a mind blowingly devastating life changing event to go through.

Books became my best friends