Hi,
My husband had an affair with a colleague, and friend of ours, (one who had been after him for years) whilst I was pregnant and after the birth of my son, until I found out. It lasted almost seven months, and involved four sexual encounters at three month intervals (one in May, one in August and two, close together, in December), kissing on a few other occasions and lots of messages back and forth, some of which I read (he e-mailed the conversations to an e-mail account I have access to?!). There were no planned dates, rather she took advantage of circumstances e.g. the Christmas party, after work drinks and he, the weak and stupid, and ill (more on this below), man that he is, went along with it.
I have posted on here before regarding the affair, and while I am grateful for the replies they were mainly along the lines of "leave the cheating bastard", "you deserve better" etc, which was not particularly helpful. It was a black and white response, while life is grey. There is no excuse for what my husband chose to do, but there is, at least in his case, understanding, compassion and, potentially, forgiveness. Humans are fallible and my husband is, irrespective of what happened, a good man. This was totally out of character for him and has left absolutely everyone speechless (his mother once said, on her life, that he was incapable of cheating!). The cynics think I am stupid, have no self respect and the such, but I am an attractive, successful and, still, confident woman. I am not taking my husbands cheating personally. It was, for the most part, problems with him, rather than me. He was, depressed (he says that he felt worthless, that I did not love him and that as such, there was no point to our marriage, in anything in fact i.e. job, friends and family).
I do however acknowledge that our marriage also had its problems, some of which were my fault and some of which were his e.g. lack of communication.
Finally, I guess it helps that he obviously did his utmost best to stop the affair (which is why it was more of a string of ad hoc encounters, rather than a full blown affair with planned rendezvous), but that she was, as our couple's therapist put it, incessant (so incessant that even once I found out she still, and I pity her for her complete lack of self respect and worth, refused to back off and we had to write to her parents for help). This despite the fact that my husband made her no promises, in fact quite the opposite i.e. he continually said it was a mistake and can never happen again, that he loved his wife and wanted to make his marriage work and out in place boundaries regarding their contact, which obviously were not always successful (the joys of drink). She is also a little crazy, in that her delusions show a very emotionally unstable and damaged woman. The lack of an remorse also leaves me cold. Either way, I pity rather than am angry at her. My husband treated her as best he could in the circumstances and she continually took advantage of that. More fool him.
Needless to say, I may understand, feel compassion and will, one day, forgive for my own sake. Whether our marriage works in the long term is, however, a separate question.
He has taken full responsibility for his actions, is remorseful, riddled with guilt and is doing absolutely everything humanly possible to keep me from leaving/to make our marriage work, better even. He is in individual counsel (he started this whilst the affair was going on, to make sense of why he was acting in such a self destructive matter, and it was his therapist that told him he was severely depressed), we both are, and we are also in couples counselling. I acknowledge that he can do no more.
The problem is with me. I deeply care for him and find myself looking after him, worrying about him..., despite what he did. I do not think there is any doubt, therefore, that I love him. The thing is I do not trust him. I do not think he'll have another affair anytime soon, but he is I guess weaker than I thought and capable of lying if it serves his purpose. He is I guess not the person I thought he was. I think I put him on a bit of a pedestal. I think everyone did... I have also lost some respect for him. Finally, I do not feel safe in our relationship, or free for want of a better word. The aforementioned is worrying me more and more.
My question is to those who have experienced an affair, either directly or indirectly. - Will I ever be happy, will our marriage ever be the same i.e. good or even better... Is there any point or should I jump ship now?
Thank you in advance for your responses.
I feel so alone in this. Affairs are usually kept secret, and I am quite young (we were the first to get married and have kids), so I have no one to turn to that has experience of this.