New house to help marriage after DH affair?

[AnotherDayAndAllThat]

Dh had an affair 2 1/2 years ago and we are getting through it slowly (still heaps of bad days but some OK ones now too) but we've hit another low point and fallen back into the same shitty routine and habits. I discovered DH's affair the same week we bought a new house (found another mobile when I was packing his stuff up)but the distraction of all the work that needed doing kinda gave us something else to focus on and helped me feel like he was committed to me.
Now the house is done we've got nothing really to talk about and I find myself thinking about his affair more now then I did this time last year. It's not helped by the fact he now has the same bored, detached manner he had when he had his affair.

We've made a bit on the house and I'm trying to convince him we should sell and do another one and that it's something for us to do together. He doesn't want the stress of it all again but I don't know what else to do to keep him occupied.

We don't have kids and tbh, I don't feel ready since his affair to bring a child into our marriage.

Friends think I'm burying his affair and keeping myself distracted and trying to keep him busy so he doesn't do it again. They're sort of right but it made me feel secure that he was committing to the house project with me and I want that feeling again.
I'm feeling anxious that what if he doesn't want to do because in his head he thinks it's locking him into our marriage for another couple of years. Is this stupid? Is it even stupid that there is a part of me that doesn't want him to leave and new house gives us longer to keep trying to fix us?

You'd be spending money on estate agents and solicitors fees and you'll be in the same position when that house is done. Throwing good money after bad.

Just spend the money on a divorce instead.

God that sounds exhausting. There are no kids involved, sell the house and divorce!

This in spades. You're only 28 OP, you have your whole life ahead of you. Do you really want to spend it with a man you'll always be suspicious of or who you need to "keep occupied" so that he doesn't get bored and start shagging around?

If you want kids then you have plenty of time ahead of you to find someone to have them with. Someone who'll treat you with decency and respect. Don't waste your life on this man.

You don't sound happy in your marriage, a new house or new 'project' is not going to fix anything.

You need to either trust him completely, learn to relax together and enjoy spending time with each other, or if this is not going to happen you need to accept that the affair has broken your marriage and you are no longer compatible and move on.

It sounds like you have reached a cross roads and I really don't think a new house is the answer.

Oh good grief.

Have some self respect.

It’s been two and a half years! If you cannot let go now, I’m not sure you ever will.

I would split with him. Sell the house and start again.

You can’t have a relationship with someone you don’t trust. You will go crazy wondering where he is and what he’s doing.

Don’t have children with him whatever you do.

Why do your feel you deserve to be treated with such massive disdain? You need to have more self respect. You deserve better than a lying cheat.

Sell the house, get divorced because you are worth more than this.

Personally in your shoes I'd cut my losses and start again.

However you seem to really want to give your marriage a bit more time to see if it can be salvaged.

Instead of embarking on a new house project together why not embark on a physical challenge together that you need to train for and support each other with?

Or if that's not possible something else to aim for that means working as a team, communicating together and supporting each other. You could choose to champion a local charity and work together to try and raise funds for example.

If what you want is to spend more time together, focused on a single goal and communicating well then something like that may reconnect you and finally put your demons to rest about his affair.

On the flip-side it may give the clarity of how exhausting it will be to live a life where you fear your husband becoming more distant and what that means.

Either way it would give you that little bit of extra time to see whether your marriage enriches your life and makes you happy or if it's just something you've fallen into accepting but now it's time to stop pretending.

Best of luck

Calzone don't be rude. I am sure OP has plenty of self respect and had her own reasons for trying to make the marriage work

OP, you are 28, and have no dcs to tie you to him. Leave. He cheated when you were only just married, and he cheated for a whole year. You say he'd have left if OW had been willing. He seems bored and distracted. These are very good reasons to leave him. At your age you'll find someone who will treat you so much better very easily.

It wasn't the house that keep you on track before it was the intense bonding period that can happen after discovery. I've been there. You feel really close like you can conquer anything. It isn't real, it doesn't last and it isn't something that can be recreated by a new project. In fact the stress and costs of a house move are likely to do the opposite.

Affairs are distructive, they wreck your head and your heart

So basically if she had left her DH he would be with her now.
You really both need to think about that.

When my H Left me I asked him why he wanted to landscape the garden just before and he said he thought he needed a project to distract him. OP are you sure your DH is going to stick around now that the house is done? Maybe you're picking up on his behaviour? That he himself thinks there is nothing left between either of you now the house is done?

Sounds like a very expensive sticking plaster. You shouldn't be the one trying so hard to fix this-he had the affair. I'm sorry this happened to you it's horrible.

He cheated on you for a whole year just after you were married? Holy shit. Having to distract your DH from cheating on you isn't normal married life. I don't mean to be rude, but I can't understand what on earth you are still doing in a marriage that is making you so miserable. You are never going to trust him again, you could buy 100 houses and keep him busy but you are never going to relax around him and be you. He destroyed that. This must be a horrid way to live .

I was an OW in similar circumstances, he'd not long been married, no kids. I was married with kids but newly separated.

After almost a year we had fallen in love but he told me he loved his wife too and wouldn't leave her so and I ended our relationship. Three months later he was back in touch with me and planning to leave. He left and we are still together five years on.

My point is this, if I had not been available then I don't believe for one moment that he would have left her then. He would've thought he was doing the right thing sticking by her but really he would have been being a coward and a complete bastard to her.

Either he would've left after a few more years or she would've come to her senses and dumped him.

If he fell in love with someone else but she wouldn't leave her marriage then you can't know he's chosen you, you could be the consolation prize, he could be staying to avoid being seen as 'the bad guy' who leaves a relatively new marriage.

You deserve much, much more than that. You deserve to be with someone who loves you, who you know is with you because there's nobody else they'd rather be with.

Wake up! Be strong. Take control.

A new house won't fix your marriage.

Have you been to marriage councelling? Actually working through your problems is better than what would basically be giant distraction.

Oh op, your story is so familiar and so heartbreaking.

He cheated when you were in your 20s and newly married. How do you think you'll feel as your body and life changes, as you age or become a mother? Will you trust him not to wander then?

If he's bored and detached now, what do you think he'll be like when you're knackered and breastfeeding, preoccupied with babies, neither of you sleeping?

You can't make him want to spend time with you. You can't make him love you like you deserve. You are young and have nothing but a house binding you together, leave now or leave in ten years when he does it again but things are less simple.

Darling, do not have children with this man. Run for the hills x

I think you need a project and a distraction. I don't think he has to bed part of it. In fact he definitely shouldn't. In all likelihood, you probably benefitted more from doing up the house and feeling good about your own capabilities than anything to do with him. Build your independence and you'll be able to make choices objectively.

We've been to counselling and he's changed for the better but it's me with the problems, I'm the one whose anxious all the time. I struggle so much with trusting him when I don't know exactly where he is or who he's with or what he's doing.

He's done everything I've asked and more but the emptiness is always inside me. Like when I look at him and don't have other stuff to distract me I keep remembering what he's done. So the distraction is sort of for me really.

Distrust isn't really chronological. There will be triggers for a very long time - mostly when you're vulnerable. I'd leave in your situation.

You were just married, it’s a time when things should be at their most rosy

You will probably always have that hollow feeling as its attached to him isn't it.

I couldn't forgive this op, I couldn't forgive a kiss either but we are all different.

This is why I think anyone that has an affair is a cunt of the highest order.

He betrayed you every single day for a year. You don't know your own history for that period of time - when you thought one thing was happening then actually something else altogether was going on - something that was deliberately hidden from you by the person who's supposed to love you most.

And that happened so shortly after you were married, too, at a time where you should have happy memories and should be able to trust your husband.

Honestly, you are right when you say you are the one who is suffering. I think you're trying to combine two trains of thought - one is that you love him, you married him, he appeared to love you - the other is that he was cheating, lying, having sex with someone else at the same time.

There's no future in this relationship. You can't trust him. You will never be able to trust him fully. And he's done this to you. It's not your fault, though it is your problem now. You deserve so much better than this.

Oh and look up hysterical bonding when you get the chance. I would be amazed if this hadn't happened to you, fooling you into thinking you belong together.

Marsha unbelievably, things between us were at there most rosy after I discovered his affair. We were crazy passionate towards each other and had our house which was an exciting new adventure for us both but now that's all finished and it just feels all empty and shit again.

I really feel for you, and I bet it does. But he treated you so badly no wonder you feel like this.

Look up 'hysterical bonding' because that is why things were at their best after you discovered the affair.

You are not the one with the problem. He broke what you had and it will never be mended, although you may both try hard for a long time. You have already done more than most women would have done in your situation. You may be able to endure it for many more years yet, but why would you? Your marriage isn't supposed to be a source of anxiety and sadness.

Your trying to stick a plaster on a severed artery.
It just won't work.

You don't trust him which is why you feel empty. It won't improve. You are only 28, go and find a better life. Your friends are right and you know it.