FFS how do you get over a betrayal??

[Isobela]

I've agreed to give it another go.
He says he's sorry, won't ever do it again blah blah blah

The issue lies with me now.

If I've agreed to give it another go then why the fuck can't I let it go.

I'm constantly hurting, constantly head fucked about how could he fuck our marriage up, how could he betray me, how could he do the very thing he shouldn't have done.

It's been 4 weeks and I've agreed to 'try' but I'm struggling to get over the betrayal.
I know I need to move on if we stand a chance but how do I let it drop when it's killing me inside every second of every day?
Will this ever get any better ?
He was my whole life.

I am assuming he had an affair. He wasn't your whole life, he was your husband who forgot the vows. You will survive this but you need support. Can I suggest you see your GP and ask for counselling so you can talk through this with someone independent of the situation. Not only may it help you resolve your hurts, but it may make you feel in charge of your emotional responses...which are quite justified by a betrayal. It is disappointment that a person you loved did not meet expectations. If you want a future with him then seek relationship counselling and if he is unwilling to commit to that, rethink your whole relationship with him.

Sorry but no it won't get any better. Dump him now x

18 months on. It gets worse every day.

It won't get better. He's destroyed your trust. I'm sorry he's done this to you. It's no way to live, being with someone who's treated you so badly, the pain and resentment you carry with you will make your life intolerable.

Nope nope nope. Had ex husband back twice. It was like living in a out of despair.
Get rid of him. Full stop

First of all, 4 weeks is an incredibly short time. Let go? Not a chance this early on. You'll spend months processing this. Months. Is your Dh pressurising you to 'get over it' ? If so, get rid. Is he open, and answering questions? If not, get rid. Cut contact with the OW? .....

If all above is being done how it should be, then I say good luck to you, although pop over to the thread I've started today (Recovering, over 2 years on) Might give you a bit of an insight.

Of course, I'm assuming affair.

Four weeks? Too soon, too raw.

Where is this pressure to 'let it go' coming from? Him or yourself?

If him - throw him out now. It's not his call. "He says he's sorry, won't ever do it again blah blah blah" - is not enough. He broke your trust and saying sorry does not mend it. Trust heals slowly if at all, and only when the person who broke it demonstrates trustworthy behaviour - and demonstrates it for a long time. If he's pressuring you to move on, that is not trustworthy behaviour.

Or is the pressure internal? Why do you feel you have to 'let it go'? Agreeing to give him a chance does not mean he gets a clean slate. Whatever he did, he did - and it cannot be written off. You are hurting and you are bloody well entitled to show it! He is essentially on probation.

It's been four weeks. Why would you even have made a decision to try? It's so soon. You're still in shock.

Has he moved out? Given you space?

Truthfully, I don't think you will get over it.

You can move on with life but you as a person will never be the same again. You will always be questioning, be suspicious, it will eat away at you if you're not careful.

Would you both go to counselling? Could help.

4 weeks is nothing as far as time to get over it. You are expecting way too much of yourself.

You go through a number of stages one goes through post affair, and as listed below.

Shock
Denial
Obsession
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

This link describes the stages in more detail.

www.yourtango.com/experts/j-cameron-gantt/7-stages-getting-over-infidelity-expert

Recover post infidelity, is said to take between 2 - 5 years, but it's longer for some and not everyone can do it.

Asides from the apologies what has he done to actually show remorse? Because sorry alone really doesn't cut it.

He says he understands I can't forgive him yet and that it will take time. I'm putting myself under pressure to get over it.
It's consuming my life every second of every day and it's killing me.

I don't think I'll ever really get over it. I feel completely broken by it.

I agreed to give him a second chance but our lives are miserable now. I can't stop going out it and asking 'why did he do it' to which he doesn't know!! I need answers and he's not giving them.

You poor thing.

You are putting pressure on yourself to 'get over it' because you want it not to have happened, you want to feel how you felt before, you want to be able to sweep it under the carpet.

But you can't.

However, people can and do survive infidelity. If the cheating partner is truly sorry, if they truly understand what they have done to their partner, if they give the partner all the time in the world to process their feelings and go through the necessary grieving process.

You say you need answers. So tell him, give him an ultimatum. Answers or he can fuck off and you'll file for divorce.

The stages of recovery from an affair are incredibly difficult and painful. They also take a long time. 4 weeks is nothing and if he's not prepared to be in it for the long haul, which will involve a lot more tears and recriminations along the way, then there is no point.
Stop putting pressure on yourself.

He doesn't know why he did it? Yes he does. He needs to dig deeper and be honest with you.

That's it, I wish I'd have just imagined it all. Every day I wake up and have that sinking feeling remembering how shit everything is.

He says he's sorry and hates himself. Begs me to forgive him.

How can I?!

Have a look at the website www.chumplady.com it kept me sane after I found out about my XH's affair.

One of my daughters went through similar several years ago and she went through all those stages mentioned upthread.
Trying to make sense of the senseless got her nowhere. She had to go through each painful stage bit by bit and with the love and support of family, a handful of counselling sessions that he paid for, eventually, she came to the conclusion that the marriage was too broken to mend because of his affair.
She couldn't move on or past his betrayal despite trying so very hard and so she left.
This was two years ago. You should see her now...confident, gorgeous, career on the up with a promotion last week, met someone special three months ago and its all looking good.
What really helped my daughter was reading books about self esteem and personal boundaries. They helped her to re-think her attitude towards relationships and to move on.
But most importantly, she's happy for the first time in years and its wonderful to see.

Pallasathena all credit to your dd. I wish I had continued with the divorce rather than caving, and taking him back. It has been so hard. I keep thinking, if I'd left 5 years ago I could have rebuilt my life by now. Instead I'm stuck in a hellish sort of groundhog day where it never goes away.

Pallas that's a story with a happy ending, it's nice to hear there can be some good come out of all this.
Do you know which books she read?

I certainly have extremely low self esteem at the moment. I've never felt so low in my life.

Oh Isobela.

I definitely think you should get counselling. You can get online counselling from the GP now with almost immediate effect. It's not as good as face to face, but it will help (I've done it).

Of course you wish you'd imagined it all. You didn't ask for this and now you are in this awful pain and misery.

Know this - you absolutely will not feel this way forever. You will be happy and strong again, inside or outside the marriage. I know that feels ridiculous now and you are thinking 'what the fuck do you know, stranger on the net' but I know because I am quite old and I have seen so many friends and family go through similar and come out the other side.

I got through it. It takes time and effort from both sides, but I actually think it was the best thing that happened in our relationship. It made us both sit up and think what we want.

It depends how you look at it. If you can accept people make mistakes then you can move on.

Watching and reading this thread 👀

I'm so sorry you're having to go through this. I did get over a betrayal from my at the time fiancé who promised me the absolute world and showed true remorse (or so I thought). I managed to get over it completely and went on to marry him. However, little did I know that literally 2 weeks after I found out about the betrayal he met someone else and it was the start of a 2 year affair. So all the while I was working hard to move on and he was promising me he would change, he had actually started a whole new affair.

I found that out 5 weeks a go and I finally had the strength to leave. Although it is the hardest thing I have had to do in my life, it is also the bravest. It was only 5 weeks a go and I feel as though a weight has been lifted as I know that although I'm in so much pain now, never again will he be able to hurt me in this way. I have taken back control of my own life, I will build myself back up and make my own happiness.

What I'm trying to say is that yes you can move on from betrayal as I did once, but you need to make sure that he is 100% supportive of you and that you are able to be happy again in the long run. At the moment it's so raw as it has only been 4 weeks. I would definitely seek help to help you move on, but you do not deserve to live in this despair everyday of your life. So if you cannot move on you are strong enough to leave and as I'm finding you may even find yourself feeling relieved.

I wish you the best of luck x