Need advice from those who have been through affairs

[GoneCold]

Just looking for some advice for those who have been in similar situations.

I found out 4 months ago that my partner had cheated. The affair had been going on for 6 weeks before i found out. The OW was a work colleague. He was her boss though she is 7 years older than him. They had sex twice in the office after work as far as i know and had planned to go to a hotel together after a work night out. He accidentaly sent me a message about this instead of her. That is when it all came out.

I left him for a few weeks and me and our 5 year old DD went to stay with my DM. Told him i needed to think about things. He begged me to give him a chance that he was so sorry bla bla bla. I went back mostly because i was legally advised to as we are not married but own a house together. I did not know at this stage what i wanted to do.

Our relationship had been pretty bad for the year leading up to this, both our fault. I feel we had grown apart and were both unhappy with each other though we did still love each other. He said i didnt appreciate him or pay attention to him which i didnt but he also didnt appreciate me. He said he is in no way justifying what he did but that is just how he felt.

He said he realises now how much he loves me and wants to sort our problems. I agreed to go to counselling and this has helped us communicate, something which we were very bad at. But it has not helped me sort my head and make a decison as to what i want to do. I have told my partner that for now i am giving him a chance but i do not know if i will stay. He left his job and has not had any contact with the OW. He told me there was no feelings involved and that it was just the excitement and feeling appreciated. He does not care about her or want anything to do with her. He did not go out looking affair but did not stop when she first kissed him on a night out. Everything developed from there. I saw some of the emails mostly normal work chat and some flirty.

He is now such a completely different person the last 4 months since the affair happened. He is so attentive, caring and hands on with everything couldnt do enough for me which is why i find it so hard to just leave him. He is putting me first since all this. He is back to the man i fell in love with. I on the otherhand find it hard to make him a cup if tea. I am so angry at him all the time and cannot shake this. I would love more than anything to move on as i know we could have a great relationship. When we are spending time together and i am not thinking about what has happened we are so good together and happy but it is very hard.

I have lost all respect for him and the trust is completely gone. He has given me passwords to everything and is completely open.

We are together 10 years and i dont want to just throw that away and break up our DD family. Im not sure deep down am i just staying because of our DD.

I am so hurt and confused and do not want to make a rash decision.

I dont really know what i am asking just need some advice and hear other stories. I feel like i can never make my mind up on wether i want to stay together or not. I change my mind everyday on what i want to do. This is just so hard.

I do not agree with the statement people do not change. We are always evolving, shaped by our experiences and circumstance. I'm not the same person I was 5 years ago, not even 2 years ago, but we don't change because someone tells us too, we change because something effects us enough that something clicks.

He says this is a wake up call for him that he was unhappy before the affair started which i know he was, we both were. He treated me pretty badly in the months leading up to the affair. He started a new highly stressful job and brought all this stress home. I always felt like i was walking on eggshells around him trying to keep the peace for the sake of our DD. He has said me leaving was a wake up call to realise he knew there were issues but really wanted to work things out and that he really regretted the affair. We have been to counselling but that didnt work as well as i thought.

I am just so confused. Since we got engaged 2 years ago our relationship started to slowly go downhill and he was not the man i first met. Now he is behaving like the man he used to be but i just dont know if we can work through this. My emotions just take over somedays and the hurt is tough though it has eased a lot since first finding out. Have confided in close family and a few friends so it is nice to have that support. Its such an easy thing to say to walk away i would always have told anyone to walk away if they were in my situation but it is so hard to go through with it

You are under no deadlines.

I'd say walk away and I've done it myself with a baby. Although it was my ex's second chance. I wish I'd have walked away the first time but our son was only 4 weeks old. I'd rather be single forever than with someone who doesn't love or respect me enough to stay faithful to me. I'm so so much happier now. I also want my son to grow up seeing healthy relationships.

I may have misunderstood some of your posts, so apologies if I have but it sounds like you haven’t had the time to process this on your own?
You said youbwere at your DMs for a few weeks and then moved back, so I can imagine you may have had your DM in one ear, trying to support and possibly him in the other trying to convince you to come back?

Understandably, its easy to fall back into the routine of a full on relationship, so going from one extreme to the other is going to wreak havoc on your emotions.
Is there any possibility of him staying elsewhere a few days here and there?
He may be trying to turn over a new leaf, and prove himself to you but over time this could get overbearing.

If you were able to have some space, without anyone telling you what to do or how to feel, it might help see things clearer and work out what you do want from all of this, if he’s not there to ‘cloud your judgement’. Hopefully I’ve explained myself well!

I hope it works out x

I’m just 4 days in from finding out about h affair. I know that I can never forgive him for the devastation that he has caused. I’ve lost all respect for him that he could do it not only to me but also to our children.

There were problems in our marriage. 3 kids takes it toll. But I knew things were wrong and I never stopped communicating with him but he chose to have an affair. It was his fault and his fault entirely.

It’s hard. Like you, he’s being really nice, very sorry etc etc but it’s too little too late. I’d love to have a clean break from him for a while but unfortunately with 3 kids I can’t.

Only you can decide what you want. I know that even if I got to a point of forgiveness, which I doubt I will, I could never trust him again. And without trust there is nothing. The insecurity would eat me up and drive us apart.

Sorry I don’t think my post had probably helped at all.

I couldn't commit myself to someone I didn't trust.
Everyone has their own boundaries. LOts of people stay for various reasons and for them it is the right decision.
I agree with Red. I'd rather be single than with someone I don't trust, to me that is no way to live. For others they are happy with the things the relationship brings.

Go to counselling for yourself first. The next 6 months are for you to heal and find a space to make the right decisions. He had to be willing to wait and be patient for you to be ready to deal with him and the relationship he has broken. Fix your damage first.

1. If he can do that it's a good start.
2. You may be clearer about what you want and whether you think you can get this in your relationship.
3. What he has to do to get where you need to be.
4. What do you need to do.

Good luck. Don't knee-jerk.

I think deep down i know i need to leave its just so hard when you have spent most of your adult life with this one person. I had all these plans in my head. Getting married and having more kids, we were both on the same page or so i thought. Its crazy how your life can change track so quickly. I think the reason i am so scared to leave is because i am afraid that it will be too late to find someone else, get married and have more children which is something i really want in my future. Which life didnt have to be so tough sometimes but I also believe that everything happens for a reason and maybe this is the wake up call i needed to know what i really want out of a partner and i know i deserve better than this.

It’s horrible isn’t it. The mourning for the relationship you had, the mourning for the future you thought you would have. It’s been a week now since I found out and I would never have expected life to turn out like this. But I have also realised how strong I am. We have done nothing wrong and at least we still have our self respect

My ex husband had a long affair and I found out after it wasn't the only infidelity. I had been with him since I was 15 we had two children. I like you couldn't decide what to do and I think was scared of how life would be although deep down I knew I needed to break free. A year or so later of feeling how you feel my dad died suddenly, my brother was battling cancer. I just realised life is too short to stay with someone like this. It wasn't working, he had been like your oh trying to be nice etc. It just wasn't enough and the trust had gone. I ended things he was distraught. I have two daughters, I didn't want them thinking relationships like this were ok.
This was a good few years ago, I then met a lovely man who I took time to be friends with first .. like a year as I was so anti being with anyone again at the time! We are now married and having a baby, (at 42 lol) my kids have a great relationship with him. He is respectful loving and I trust him completely. It is such a different experience and he is my soulmate. If I hadn't found the strength to be alone I never would have this. When I was on my own I enjoyed it actually at the time, I felt empowered and I think now it is far better to be own your your than lonely in the wrong relationship.
You will know when the time is right what is best for you. Give it as much time as you need and don't be hard on yourself x

I don't know all the details of mine, and I probably never will. My now dh was secretly in touch with a 'friend' for a couple of years, who he was going to leave me for. His reasons were also that he was stressed with a new job, and i didn't give him enough affection (and sex). Which i most probably did, given that his announcement came out of the blue and we were, in my mind, behaving just the same as usual together at home, bar the few arguments caused by him making a unilateral decision which suited him alone.
Even though i thought we had gotten over it, since married and had dc, recent circumstances (new job, stress, away from home socialising, interested colleague) have caused a great deal of damage to the relationship again, as it feels like I have caught him at the beginning of a repeat of his previous. Add to that the fact that his deceitful behaviour caused him to lie for most of the intervening years about something else too.
So, with hindsight, my advice would be not to trust that he will change in the long term. He DID blame you (with the lack of affection comment), and he only stopped because he got caught.
Well done to those who put enough hard work in to make it, but to my mind, someone who gives in to extramarital sex because they're a bit stressed at work is unlikely to put the effort into their primary relationship and will instead take the easy, exciting route.
If counselling hasnt helped, I don't think he's done enough to convince you deep down that he has changed.