How do you help a person who has hurt you?

[PTFswife]

I previously said I would never post on the relationships board again because I cannot stand the LTB chant that comes out when I try to explain why I am choosing to remain with my husband after he had an affair. What I am wanting is advice from people who have gone through their partner having an affair and are now trying to make their marriage work. If you are someone who has gone through the hurt of a partner cheating and cannot understand why someone would stay, please leave now. Sorry for being blunt but I truly do want advice from mumsnetters but cannot deal with the usual battering I seem to get when I say I am trying to work on my marriage.

So if you are still here and aren't going to tell me to LTB, here's my problem. My husband had an affair. It is two days from being one year since d-day. The summer has been hard. There have been numerous trigger points in relation to the affair. In addition, his mother has died. And we've both had a huge amount to deal with. All our good work at the start has taken a knock due to life circumstances. We are still soldiering on.

But there are times when my anger flares up. Sometimes it is due to him reverting to behaviours shown when he had the affair e.g. withdrawing, lack of communication. Recently I had a trigger and I got angry with him. He in turn became very very sad. Hangdog is the only word I can use to describe him.

We have since talked but I have realised something. He is suffering from depression. He hates himself so much for what he has done by having an affair, coupled with almost losing his job and then watching his mother waste away through a horrid disease and then dying. He has had a LOT of shit happen. Now it's easy to say: well plenty of that is of his own making. And I agree.

But here's my dilemma. I need to express how I feel when I have triggers or get angry. I need to discuss his affair and what it has done. But I know that everytime I do it (and I try not to do it often) it makes him feel worse and worse. I fear that he could reach a point where he is so depressed that he can no longer function. He is the main breadwinner.

I feel torn between wanting to be a good wife and help him through this (not to mention the selfish reason of knowing that if he gets completely depressed he could just stop functioning) and wanting to be able to talk about what he has done and how it makes me feel when trigger situations arise.

I wondered if anyone else has been in this situation? How do you help the person who hurt you when the reason they hurt is because of what they have done to you?

Reading your posts I wondered two things.

Firstly, I wondered if his depression was a sign of him just being incredibly unhappy in the marriage.

Secondly, I think you have to draw a line under this now. If you've forgiven him, you've forgiven him and can't keep punishing him 12 months later. You won't remember, but I have replied to your threads and all along I've thought you should have asked him to leave, so I'm not saying this because I'm some kind of infidelity apologist!

Great advice Northernpixie - particularly about using the affair to worry about when actually there are other worries to avoid.

Vivacia I do remember you from previous threads. I think perhaps I needed to get through this anniversary of d-day. It is a major milestone. I am hoping I can draw a line under it. But I don't intentionally punish him. We've both realised that we didn't communicate before, so now we do. That means that if I am upset by some trigger or action of his, I raise it, not in an angry aggressive way, but to let him know what I am feeling. If I don't I bottle it up and resentment builds.

I think he was deeply unhappy in our marriage. I was too. But we both chose to avoid the difficult conversations. Or rather, he avoided them when I raised them. It actually had been getting better when the affair happened.

My biggest worry - and I think his as well - is that we will return to the same marriage we had before. Some of the same old issues are still there, only now we have the affair to deal with on top of it.

All of that said, we aren't in a permanent state of unhappiness. We actually have a lot of fun together when we have time, we still laugh a lot and in general our marriage is a lot healthier than many others I see around me.

I have spent a good amount of time thinking about this and the bottom line is that I need to get myself happy. Really happy. Confident, have purpose, be the person I used to be. I think that is all he wants. And if I am happy, he will be happy. So that's the game plan. Someone recommended the LIghtning Process to me - I have looked into it and while it sounds a bit weird, I like the sound of how you can reprogramme your brain. It just costs a small fortune so need to figure out how to pay for it.

I think perhaps I needed to get through this anniversary of d-day.

That was my third point. I knew I wanted to suggest something else. I'm worried that you're still viewing everything from the perspective of he had an affair. This week should have been "7 weeks until we do that thing together" or somesuch.

I am slapping my hand over my mouth to the rest of your post as I only have one thing to say.

Have you tried joint counselling? I'm sure in that situation it would be possible for a therapist to help you both work on anger/guilt and help you find ways of discussing things that you need to without you feeling you're making his depression 'worse'.

I honestly think someone from outside the situation would help.

Are you having counselling to help get over it/ forgive him/ help with esteem issues/ deal with the fallout? That might also help too

It feels like you are in a marriage that when it goes wrong, it goes wrong in a cold way, like mine. Some marriages go wrong in a hot way - lots of fighting and conflict. Others get sad and separate, which is less dramatic but also potentially harder because at least with the other way there is connection going on, even as there is damage. counseling notoriously really helps 'cold' conflict because the hardest thing is to actually have a conversation about things. My tendency is to bottle things up, like yours, and if our patterns are like that too, you get a stalemate, and even maybe depression. I also believe that in that environment, you will be able to express yourself much more easily when you are angered by something, and because there is a third party present, he will be much more mature about dealing with it.

I'm afraid to say my partner was a very different person in counseling because he was being 'watched'. And a lot of the hiding, self-pity and aggression vanished. it made me realize how much rubbish we put up with that we never would if someone was watching.

I'd say conflict-avoidance needs to be addressed (ha! was there ever a contradiction in terms) and also the fact that very gently, the onus is being put on you a bit. If all he wants is for you to be happy, that might be laudable but it feels like you are being made responsible for fixing things, even if that's under the banner of you 'happiness'.

I want to support you doing that however. I would be wary of stuff like The Lighting Process. It's mostly quick fix bollocks.

It's great that you still have fun together. That's worth a lot.

Sorry you have been through all this. I'm certainly not in the LTB brigade. A marriage is a process, a lifelong process and will need working on. It's all too easy to get stale, complacent or simply disconnected. Or loads of other ways of simply forgetting why you actually love each other.

The year anniversary was bound to feel bitter, a time of looking back and remembering the pain and anger. Maybe now is the time for both of you to consciously start to look forward? Plan some activities, trips or meals out. Do something new together?

Your DH does sound depressed and should see his GP. Just because he did wrong he is still entitled to get treatment, be it meds or counselling or both. Also I'd strongly encourage you both to do things both together and separately that you enjoy, especially physical things like walking, swimming etc. it might sound mad or impractical but would you consider getting a dog? It has brought a new and better dimension to our marriage as we have a shared love of him and the park and also a whole new bunch of friends, too.

Sorry this is a bit disconnected. I will tell you since this is anonymous, that I recently found out that my mother had an affair many years ago and somehow my dad forgave her and they are still together happily bickering away! Also my uncle, my aunt had a breakdown. He was mortified, she bitter and furious beyond belief. It was hard but ten years on they are solid and, from an observers point of view they have a stronger, more equal relationship.

I wish you both well.x

Thanks Matilda. Very encouraging words. Kitty and bloodonthetracks we have been for joint counselling, individual counselling and fantastic couples counselling with another couple who had been through the same thing. It helped massively. I think it's just the craziness of the last few months that has made us disconnect again and the anniversary is making me think about it more than usual. We are going to start cycling together every Saturday morning and have a number of nights out planned so we are both focusing on going forward. I hope that the tension that bubbles up from time to time can be managed. X

I stayed with my husband. He had his second affair with a friend.
I lost many others through choosing to stay with him.
Your marking of anniversaries feels very familiar and from my own experience I am not sure how healthy. I would find much to compare and analyse on a daily basis about us, his affair, pre affair us, post affair us. We were all about the affair no matter how hard I tried (pretended?) we werent.
I told my DH that if we were to survive he couldnt live in a guilty bubble but I think its not that easy.
He was labelled the man that did this to us and I was labelled the woman who forgave. You have to fight the sheer gut wrenching pain and also somehow defend your position when perhaps its not that easy to explain.
I wanted my DH to be available to me when I needed to talk about the affair or anything connected to it. It was though in hindsight that I had permission to dwell and be hurt. I didnt mean to but there was no end point and so the affair continued to be part of our lives
I made a conscious decision to forgive but what is forgiveness? It might sound odd but is it as simple as staying together or is it deeper? Can you stay together hoping to forgive one day? Can you just decide and get on with it?
I used to say trust is something I practise everyday. It is a conscious decision. I think I found trust easier than forgiveness. In hindsight I couldnt forgive myself as much as anyone. I felt guilty that he had done that to me and I was still with him.
I was depressed I am sure though never diagnosed. I remember clearly a moment one afternoon when I felt happy and I realised I hadnt felt like that for a long time. That was when I realised how sad I had been.
I am sure I was not easy to live with - I would get upset, he would do the right thing but I would know he was doing the right thing.. it was action and reaction all the time and I analysed too much. I was scarred.
My DH put himself through hell to keep us together but i question now if that can even be true. Hell really? Or just really awkward facing of truths and consequences with me and friends and family.
And what of us now? In the two years post affair he made some errors - messed up with money - made some unilateral decisions and it all just brought home to me that I couldnt forgive myself for staying with him. We would always be about his affair. I dont though regret those two years.
Find yourself in all of this - you as a person. You have to let go of the affair if you can.
Am sorry for the length of this. If it helps in any way I am glad. Your story resonates very much.

Faithfaith thank you for posting that. It sounds so very familiar. I am going to try and put what you say into practice as much as I can.

PM me if ever needed. Day at a time.

Thank you so much

Hi PTFswife and well done on getting through year one. I am a few months behind you but am trying to piece my marriage back together. Last month or so we have turned a corner (i think) but I understand what you mean when you say your dh is depressed. Mine too and I am at odds at to wether it is because he is unhappy though he assures me he is wrapped up in guilt.
Keep going strong. xx

Thanks HoldTight and best of luck to you. x

If you've chosen not to leave him then I think it's unfair to keep bringing it up. It was your choice to stay with him despite what he's done so you need to leave it in the past and move on x