Anyone one ever recover from an affair

[heartbrokenhettie]

So just that really. Found out this evening my partner of 8 years has slept with a work colleague on several occasions.

It's still a shock and I'm totally numb, I'm unsure if to cut my losses and leave or work to repair our broken relationship ?

Does it ever work once a partner has cheated? Can any positives be gained ?

My head is spinning

I've been through all those emotions too flowerpot. We must be on a similar timescale; D day was March last year followed by a second D day in July....they were still sexting. 😓
At the moment I'm flat-lining; feeling nothing. He's just got back from a week in his motorbike, camping with his mate. He's been lovely and I feel he means it when he's so sorry and lives me so much. I'm damaged, it's more than bruised, I feel damaged as a person.
If I didn't have 2 older DC, a home and 28 years with him, I probably wouldn't stay TBH . It's taken me all this time to come to this realization. I made the decision to do nothing, which in itself is a decision. We went through the frantic bonding, the rows, the desperate to keep him. I might feel all of that tomorrow, my emotions are on a pendulum. At the moment though, I just feel nothing.
Sorry I can't be more help.

Don't know why autocorrect is changing o's for i's......sorry!

Just thought I would report back, you have all been so helpful. We have talked and talked. He has answered every question I've asked honesty, even when was too painful to hear. I have decided to try to try. It's not forgiveness and we're back together, it's I'm going to see how I cope, how I deal with trust, how I deal with the thoughts of them swirling round my head, if I manage to get past this then just maybe we can grow and reconnect. If I can't I have explained I will walk away. But I will be walking away knowing I tried and they will be no nagging doubt and no what ifs. He accepts that. He knows it will be a slow process and some shitty times ahead but I can but try. He is going to move into spare room tonight.

I need to work on me, bit cheesy but definitely need self care. I'm going to make the effort to look nice and dress better but no for him, for me. It might of initially been spurred on by the fact that he slept with a twenty something and I'm 37 but I actually don't see her age or appearance as a threat! Not today anyways.

I stayed affair was 8 years ago now , a friend of his from School who he got close to at a time we were struggling , his mum had died and he was very depressed , I had recurrent miscarriages and life was just a bit sad . She gave him the attention he needed . He ended it the woman got angry and told me , I still feel ill thinking about it and will never be the same again . It broke me in the way i’ll Never see love and relationships the same way again HOWEVER I’m glad I stayed , he worked so hard on our relationship and has always made me feel loved is an amazing father and we have a lovely life together and are very happy but the Innocence and perfection of our early time together is gone forever . Things just aren’t Black and white what made it work for us was him being sorry and putting the work in to being with me and me accepting he wasn’t perfect and being able to put it behind us .

Mine was depressed too For similar reasons ichifanny , howevet he never confessed and was found out accidentally 11 years after event. What gets me though is it’s not allowed to be mentioned without severe angst on his part and he has never once mentioned off his own back

We don’t really mention it now I just feel it’s unfair to keep dredging it up as 8 years have passed and we have had more children but at the time he was willing to discuss it whenever I needed to which was frequent , I’d go along a few weeks fine then suddenly be consumed with rage again .

ichi can I ask if you don’t mind, how you got to the point that you felt comfortable having more children?

I found out about my husband’s affair 6 months ago. We have 2 young children and I’ve always hoped for another, but I have strongly felt that I could never see us having another child as, while I am willing to try and make it work, I cannot accept the thought of being left with 3 children. It may be an overhand from those very scary early days when the thought of raising 2 young children seemed overwhelming, I don’t know.

We had our daughter about three years later , we were in a pretty good place by that point and felt as strong as we could be , I guess you never know whether a relationship is a dead cert , it felt right at the time is all I can say .

I have to say I still had the fear I’d be left alone with 3 kids once pregnant as pregnancy hormones exacerbated some of the insecurity I was feeling but my husband to his credit worked hard to make me feel at ease so it wasn’t easy .

Thank you. Yes I can completely understand that. I know it seems odd too that I’m willing to work at our relationship but not willing to invest any more, but you are completely right, the biggest thing this has highlighted to me is that all relationships are fragile (and that is ALL relationships, despite people thinking they are solid/good/strong, I thought that too 🙄) and that people let each other down in many, many ways, not exclusive to cheating.

How many years post affair are you now (sorry if you’ve already said I can’t scroll up). Do you feel like you have a balanced life?

What he says does feel genuine but it could also be the big standard cheaters script !

My gut is that he is genuinely remorseful

But he now has form

He's a man who lacks integrity and respect for you

How do you get that again from him?

I’m 8 years down the line now lucky star I know lots of people would have told me to leave but i didn’t want to , there was more to stay for to be honest . If at any point I felt that there wasn’t anything left I would have left . It meant I had to swallow a lot of pain and readjust my idea of how we were as couple , lots of people can’t do that and I understand that . Sometimes I think it would have been easier to walk away , but I’m glad at this point I didn’t .

And yes I have as balanced a life as any other couple , we have lots of love and a happy family . It’s hard to reconcile that with someone who can deceive you , I guess it helped my husband ended the affair on his own terms out of guilt before I even found out . I’m not sure how I would have felt if he had to give it up purely because I found out .

@seventh good question, but I would rather try and somehow recover and build on trust. If we fail I will feel far stronger walking away.

I do believe he is remorseful and he regrets his actions, as he should. But I still love him, he knows that, that love might not be enough. His actions and time will tell.

He's a man who lacks integrity and respect for you
How do you get that again from him?

That’s a good question seventh and I agree with heartbrokenhetties reply.

He should also be the one hoping to regain respect though so the actions and words of both are crucial at this point and in the coming weeks, months, years.

There are many relationships where one or both partners lack integrity and/or respect for the other in some way. We see it all the time.
The problem is that it’s generally harder to change this behaviour unless there is a clear ‘watershed’ moment. The discovery of an affair is an opportunity to change your relationship, often for the better. The important thing is it must change.

Op how are you doing?

I've been watching this thread to see if there's been any more posts.

Hope you are ok . It's shit isn't it. Every day unearths a new emotion

ichifanny your story reads almost like mine its frightening!

I'm 18 month out. Its been hard. Awful. The first year I was just hell bent on making everyone suffer, including myself. Id feel one hour and ready for jail the next, in the early months. I was so angry irrational I could not think of ANYTHING outside the box.

I suffer still from nightmares and triggers daily.

Please take one day at a time OP.

@diamondsandrose thanks for thinking of me.

Very early days but we talked and talked and ultimately I decided if I walked away now unsure if I'd done the right thing or not, it would drive me crazy, maybe crazier than the actual affair. So we have decided to try. We agreed that the affair would be discussed when I needed it to be and not be the elephant in the room and he would need to be open and honest and it would be a crappy ride for a while. I also told him this might still result in me walking away.

So far things have been ok. I have had my moments when he is quiet and I panic that he would rather be with her or if he is on his phone, I wonder who he is texting, I'm a bit nervous about work outings he has planned.

But I am surprised how comfortable I am with him and how much I still love him. He needs to be more open and affectionate but that's a working progress and something that doesn't come naturally to him.

I think it will be a long time before we have as close to ideal as we will ever get, but I still get excited when he comes home and I'm looking forward to the weekend together.

The part I'm struggling with the most is how isolating and destructive the negative thoughts are. I didn't tell too many people when it happened and now we are trying again I don't want to go over it with people or for them to judge our relationship. So I'm finding it lonely when I do get sad or anxious. He was late home from his hobby the other night ( not super late, he has been this late before. But I got it in my head that he was with her or at least parked up on the phone to her. My mind was going crazy. And then as soon as He parked up at home and his friend was with him who is a team member on his hobby who lives across the road) all became calm again and I realised I had got myself into s frenzy over something I knew wouldn't of happened anyway. Nothing comes between him and his hobby!!

It's all a learning curve at the minute but feel I have made the right choice for me.

It’s 3 weeks in OP and it sounds like he’s got off terribly lightly ?

@TheDrinksAreOnMe not at all. But we have decided to try and make a go of our relationship and hopefully improve on it so I'm not sure punishing him is really productive. We have discussed in absolute detail and gone over it all over and over again.

We will work if I can forgive and forget and that is what we are working on, there's a chance we can improve on what we already have ( although it can never be as innocent as it was)

He knows I'm working though it on my side. He is distraught at all the heartbreak he has caused, but I want to move forward so we are learning to be a couple again and focusing on us as a couple. Punishing him will be counter productive. He definitely hasn't got off lightly. There is a lot more to this situation than I can write and or want to discuss but if that's how it comes across so be it. I'm comfortable with how I am managing the situation and we talk and evolve everyday.

You will never forget OP.
Never. It just doesn't work like that.
Hopefully you can learn to live it and you can learn to forgive.
You will never fully trust him again either.
This is your life and you are doing what is right for you right now.

With regards to having no-one to talk to, could you get some counselling/therapy?
Might help if you talk out with an impartial person.

Hettie thanks for posting, glad to hear things are sounding pretty calm at the moment.

I think you sound really sussed and sensible and I know he won't be getting off lightly. You sound like you are doing the right thing, take one day at a time and making no promises. It's still so early and quite right to not make any hasty decisions.
Throwing him out is so tempting initially in the shock but for me I tried to look at the whole picture and even in the midst of the hell I thought, could I ever really be happy without him? He's my best friend and a good person that I've loved for 21 years. It's a lot to throw away. I think you need to separate the person, from the behaviour. He made an awful awful decision/mistake and it's going to haunt him forever.

I'm still not sure what will happen with us. I'm all over the place clinging to him one minute , screaming in his face the next. He's living with a lunatic but well, he created the monster!

I think you're mad for staying.
Sounds like you're staying because you desperately want a child and he's your only hope.
Your choice obviously, but you will regret it.

@FeckinCrunchiesInTheCar

At no point have I implied I'm staying because I'm desperate for a child. When it first happened I stated that we was planning on fertility treatment and that if I left it might not happen for me. That is all I have said on the matter. I have said I'm staying because I love him and what to see if it can work, if it can't I will walk away knowing I am doing the right thing. You are just making assumptions! It would of been better if you'd of asked me if that's why I'm staying instead of just telling me that's why I'm staying!