Affair recovery rollercoaster

[Leftforemotionalaffair]

I just need some support. We are about 6 weeks in to this process so I know it is early days. Things have been going really well the last two weeks, he got to a place where he understood why he did it, took responsibility and we had great communication, spent a lot of quality time together and had good sex. The last 2 days he has taken a huge leap backwards, he is depressed, hates his life, hates his job, angry at family members, angry at me. Not giving me anything I need emotionally but expecting me to be his sounding board. I feel so stuck and take it all personally that he doesn’t want to be with me because life is so miserable. He has struggled with depression through all of this and is on ads and seeing a therapist and putting in the work but seeing the setbacks is so hard for me. When he is like this my needs are forgotten and I start to question why I am bothering even though previously he has given me everything I need. We have a first appointment for couples therapy next week, I hope that can help me process that this is not a linear process.

God, why put yourself through it

No man is worth that. No man.

I'm not seeing remorse here. I couldn't be having a wayward spouse getting angry with me.

There has been a lot of remorse, so much progress. He is just having a bad day or two with life I think and I am taking it personally. I guess that is my new normal for a while, I am going to have to understand that everything he feels isn’t about us or even related to what we are going through. His low mood has been triggered by some unrelated family issues. I guess I just want reassurance that it is normal for me to feel
like this and for there to be difficult days. Just hard after we had some amazing progress.

It's early days, love. Very Early days. I know that you desperately want to be at the next 'stage' of this, but you're still reeling. The progress that you're talking about will be very slow indeed. They say it's generally around eighteen months before things really feel back to (a new) normal, and that held true for me.

Have you got RL support?

Hugs to you - this is a shit place you're in.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's an expression used about your amazing progress. It's called hysterical bonding. It is really, really common, after finding out about infidelity, to go through this. I think you should take a bit of time to read up on it - I certainly wish I'd heard about it.

Just be warned: you will resist this idea. You will think that what you two had afterwards wasn't like that - it was real. Intense. A sign of how much you love each other. Later, I guarantee, you will realise it was hysterical bonding.

Here's a blog about it.

There are tons of threads on MN about it - it will be well worth your looking at them, but remember what I said about resistance.

7 billion people in the world and you want to put up with this shit from one bastard who didn’t give a fuck about you when he was shagging someone else.

Yup. To hysterical bonding and TO resistance to the idea that it might apply to you! Been there.

Is he remorseful because the affair made him feel bad about himself and he has to deal with the fallout?
Or is he remorseful because he knows how much he hurt you?

I stayed with my ex after the first affair because of how obviously sorry he was. It's only now after he did it again that I realised everything he said was about how awful he was feeling. He never once acknowledged my feelings without getting angry at me for being upset with him.

I'm certainly no relationship expert, far from it. Recently separated from a 7 year abusive relationship. But the key question that I had to answer at the end of the day was 'Can I go it alone?'.

Answer is yes, but it's taking some adjusting. It's the simplest things that get me. I have no-one to bother cooking dinner for, no-one to moan to when I'm unwell, no-one to take the bins out.
But I also have no bollox of a prick messing with my head on a daily basis.
I'm only about a month single. In another month I'm sure I'll be 10 times better and stronger.
Do you really need to forgive him and accept this? That's something you've to answer yourself.

All helpful advice but I think I haven’t really made my point. DH is prone to this behavior when he has issues with his family, gets depressed for a day or two, angry at the world. Has happened for years, I am
The support but he is often angry at me too. Issue is now i am having a hard time not thinking more of this behavior. His relationship with his family is an issue and he is addressing it. Post affair I just read more into it and I guess I am asking if it is normal to have these feelings.

Unless he treats everyone; his boss, people on the street, his family, his friends with the same level of abuse, then he’s using it as an excuse.

Sorry if I’m dim, but can you spell out to me why you’re staying with this prince among men??

I didn't care how upset he is with external factors. He has zero right to take it out on you after you've very graciously decided to try and work through his infidelity.

Is he rich? Are you in negative equity? Are you scared of being single? It's hard to grasp why you'd put up with being his emotional punchbag after he's betrayed you. If a cheat is lucky enough to be given a second chance they should be working tirelessly not to blame or dump on the injured party. Depression is no excuse.

Depression makes you depressed. People with depression are still perfectly capable of treating their loved ones with love and respect, not anger.
As another poster said, does he take it out on his boss or colleagues? If not, then he's got at least some control over it and he's using depression as an excuse for bad behaviour.

I think the hysterical bonding thing is probably very relevant.

Also, 6 weeks post-discovery = about 1 mm of the entire journey (which will go thousands of miles).

The single most important thing I can tell you from my experience is: you will not actually know how you really feel about this, and him, for at least two years. I think.

You may well at the moment be clinging to each other and think that you can live with this. At the moment, you can.

Down the line, there may come a point where it just sort of dissolves away.

Or, there will come a point when you think 'WTF???????? How can I possibly ever have considered staying with someone who did this?'

As for his depression, and the complication of his family - that's something that I guess has rumbled on forever, like a grumbling volcano. It will affect his day to day behaviour, but it shouldn't be mixed up with how you feel about his affair.

The danger here is that you will be a martyr to his problems for the next x number of years, and then you'll finally leave him, and regret all the time wasted on him.

So, if you can, try to get really tough with yourself and decide what to do.

Wow, why did you bother posting? You are more sucked in than well .... whatever the most sucked-in thing is.
What do you want out of this post?
You've a cheating husband who is now apparently depressed and taking his anger out on you and you want us to offer you help to get him over it?
You're so in over your head, your arse is sticking up.

You don't need help for him. You need help to get your head out of the sand.

You sound vulnerable so I'm going to put this gently. I don't think he loves you, I don't think he is happy in his marriage, I think he would go if anyone else would have him and all that is keeping him in your marriage is home comforts.
Have you ever considered yourself in this at all? Your feelings? Your needs? Your wants? What is acceptable to you? How you want and need to be treated?

Because (and this is where my niceness goes down hill) - fuck him - he sounds like a dead weight cheating bastard bollox.

And take it from me, I have wasted 6 years of my life on a similar specimen.