After an affair.... any advice please

[n0nym0us]

I had an affair.... It was very short-lived, with someone I know through work. Calling it an affair feels, to me, like it's making more of it than it actually was.

My marriage was in a mess..... my husband had a life changing event, for all of us. And we'd got into that exhausted all work and no play, pretty much ignoring each other scenario. I thought he was having an affair, but never said anything, and we just argued constantly. I just waited for him to leave basically. Btw, this isn't me making excuses (there's far more back story) but it is explaining why I managed to get myself in this mess.

What actually happened was I arranged to meet this bloke at a hotel. It wasn't a great experience, I didn't enjoy it and I very much regret ever doing it in the first place. It was a one-off, and there was never anything else going to happen. I text him for a while, as I have to deal with him through work, but just let it tail off.

8 months later and my dh and I are working hard to get back on track. My health hadn't been brilliant, and I ended up being taken to hospital one night in severe pain. I had to go on my own as he needed to stay with the dc. He came over around 10am I think. I was still in a huge amount of pain, and pretty much off my head on painkillers that weren't working. I gave him my phone to get in touch with a couple of people as the signal was very hit and miss. Gave him my password, and he took the opportunity to go through my texts to a friend and find enough evidence to put it all together in his head.

So, we're now 6-8 weeks later. We do love each other and want it work, that's not in question. But he has one of those minds that doesn't let things go, it's like he's torturing himself. And in turn me. I've fully admitted to what I did, told him everything. Taken the verbal kicking time after time, because it is my fault and I did do something I shouldn't have done. But, and this is where I'm struggling, he's no angel himself. I've found out about 5 different occasions where his actions haven't been appropriate for our marriage, but he's deleted the evidence straight away and consistently denied it all. Then there was the night he stayed out all night, with minimal contact. Wouldn't speak to me, I didn't know where he was or who he was with. I didn't find out until maybe 2 years later that he'd been taking drugs. Something he knows I'm completely against.

But we're still hanging in there. We've just had the most lovely weekend away together, but Friday was awful and so has today been so far. He asks me the same questions over and over, basically to see if he tricks me out. On other days, I've been woken up at 5am and barraged with questions whilst still half asleep. And then he's shocked when I don't have the answers, or just downright give him the wrong information....

This is a mammoth, all over the place post... I'm sorry. I don't have anyone that I can say all this to, and I fully expect him to find this too. I'm in a pretty bad place at the moment, I really want my marriage to work and if anyone has any advice at all I would really appreciate it.

I don't have any good advice except to say I've been in your shoes too. We did work it, it went ok for several years, but we've recently parted. What I did and what he did (it was both of us that played away but at different times) actually didn't factor in our parting. We'd just outgrown each other and wanted different things in life. We are still 'best friends' for what it's worth, and I see him daily as he visits ds. I'm in a new relationship and he gets along really well with him, they sit, talk and have a beer together. He's just happy that I've found somoeone that not only makes me happy but is also really good with ds (who's a teen by the way).

I guess we overcome our 'affairs' by looking at what led to them and talking about that. For me it was affection had stopped- the small things like having a kiss on the cheek when he walked through the door, sex had completely stalled (and I'm quite a sexual person), I would talk about my worries regarding work (in a high pressured job) and he would basically grunt at me, I'd want us to go out for a meal etc but it was always turned down and stuff like that. I didn't have the normally annoyances- he hoovered, dusted, ironed, done the washing, filled and emptied the dishwasher, picked the kids up for school (eldest ds not his) and so on. So never any complaints on that front. I just felt forgotten I guess. I wanted him to be my friend that I could confide in and who would hold me and tell me it would be ok.

So we talked a lot and also agreed that he could ask any questions he wanted regarding the affair, however once answered that was it. We weren't going to keep bringing things up. In all honestly this is when looking back I knew that things probably weren't going to work out. He had plenty of questions which I answered. However I had a pretty much 'I'm not bothered' attitude about his. It didn't go over and over in my mind. I was able to draw a line under it. Sure it hurt I'm not saying it didn't, was it because I'd put on weight etc thoughts were there. I don't know, maybe it's my personality or I may just be weird! I don't know.

But if you love him and want your marriage to work, I think you need to give him the opportunity to ask whatever he wants and you will answer honestly. But make it clear that it's the last time, and you are not going to continue being interrogated. All this will do is make you resent him and push you away. Ironically possibly make into a similar situation.

Thank you for taking the time to read and reply.

We've talked constantly. We've talked about the lead up, why it happened, how we move forward - everything. But it all comes back to one basic fact.... he doesn't believe what I tell him about it. Today has been truly awful, and I'm closer than ever to just throwing in the towel. I don't want to, but at some point self preservation kicks in and I think that's where I am today. I have a very stressful job, and today I'm not coping.....

If you want this to work you need to be more empathetic to him & let him process this.

You’re badging this up as an affair, he’s seeing this as a seedy hotel meet, where somebody he thought was committed to him, let some other bloke shove his cock up you.

Time is your only hope, if you’re committed to making this work

It's only two months since he's found out. There's a bit of a rocky road ahead, but it's early days. Only you know if it's worth sticking it out. It may be that it can't be fixed, but I think expecting it to have settled down between you already is a bit optimistic.

SoaponaRoap it's probably the other way around. I say affair because that's what he sees it as. To me it was a few weeks of flirty texts, meeting up for not great sex and then a couple of weeks of friendly texts as I tried to get out of it as painlessly as possible with regards to my work.

You’re expecting too much, too soon. My H had a similar ‘affair’ to you: they only slept together once, it was mostly messaging and stopped after a few weeks when I found out. After me kicking him out for 2 months, we decided to try and reconcile and things have only settled down recently, 6 months later.

We had months of tears, questions, accusations, etc. The best thing you can do is be as open and honest as possible, keep answering his questions no matter how repetitive they are, make it clear how sorry you are. It takes time.

Whatever you are going through, it’s 1000 times worse for him so remember that.

For me I think I'd find a casual one off worse than an affair because how could you be so casual? I guess I'd feel like so....the person didn't even mean that much and you jeopardised our marriage for just a quick shag?

Maybe that's why he's asking for details again and again. He perhaps can't believe it was just what you say it was and is suspicous there is more. I would be too. I would be frankly incredulous that you risked so much for someone who meant so little and convince myself there's more or it happened before.

BUT ultimately, whilst I agree that you should be prepared for repeating yourself and giving reassurance for a time, it shouldn't be forever. I think you need to make it clear that you can only keep rehashing things so often and he either has to choose to believe you or not, and you both decide to move forward. You don't have to be a martyr. Forgiveness doesn't include constantly digging up the past. Imagine walking and for every attempt to walk forward you end up walking backwards instead.

It may be that he cannot bring himself to trust you again. But neither of you will know this unless you move past this accusatory stage and really try to work together again. The issues you can only be solved walking forward. Are you still working with the person in question? If so could you change your job? What about couples therapy? Do you think either of those would be helpful?

I don't work with him, I see him 2 or 3 times a year at events and have dealt with by phone or email for several years. So much of it is easy to cut off. Changing my job isn't an option I'd be keen to pursue for various reasons that could identify me pretty easily, and I'm sure dh would agree. However, I have made sure I don't have to deal with him in the office, and most definitely won't socialise with him at events.

He means the absolute world to me, we both desperately want it to work. But I am struggling to deal with days like today when it's been relentless and we've talked about splitting, but yesterday he told me he could marry me again. It's also raised issues for me that were never dealt with at the time as he just denied them, so thats really hard too. The temptation to throw it back in his face was too much this morning, and then we ended up in a tit for tat shouting match.

I'd definitely go for counselling, we actually talked about that earlier.

Thank you for all your replies.

Sorry but what do you expect? He did some bad things but you willingly stayed with him and then willingly jumped into bed with someone else and shagged them. You weren't forced to stay, you weren't forced to shag someone else. How good it was or how you think of it is irrelevant. It was an affair. You cheated on him. All willingly.

He has to get over your betrayal. You stayed with him through all of his mess ups like the drugs but you didn't have to. He also doesn't have to stay with you so don't be surprised if he eventually decides he can't stay. But he will lash out at times, you cheated, you made the ultimate betrayal. You even still see the man in question. If this was a man saying this, he'd be crucified for it.

You're going to have to put up with the questions. It's been months, he's still hurting because you couldn't manage to stop yourself. You're to blame for this. Only you. So keep answering the questions. Keep putting his fears to rest that you'll shag someone else. You're in for a long haul if you want this to work. It will not be easy and it will not be quick.

I think it's one of those situations where, whilst there's no excuse for an affair, the innocent partners former behaviour has contributed to the cheating partners feeling of disatisfaction/loneliness/unhappiness which led to them being vulnerable to attention from someone else.

It is VERY difficult to have that conversation when the innocent partner rightly feels betrayed, and thinks how the hell can you blame me in any way for your crappy actions.

But of course if there were issues resulting from their behaviour it must be talked about, acknowledged, admitted to in order for anything - the factors leading to the affair to change.

Very hard. I agree that counselling is the way forward so you have an impartial outsider helping you to address failings on both sides.

Thank you so much for the replies, even the tough ones!!

Yesterday was an awful day for both of us. I was in bits by the end of it from the constant bombardment, and so was dh. But I was hugely relieved to have him home, as I was convinced he was going to leave. It's a horrible feeling to not feel secure with him, he is my rock.

He apologised for being horrible to me, which he didn't need to do, and we sat and talked pretty much all evening. And have made some real progress. We also sat an looked our texts to each other for the past 18 months, and you can literally see in black and white when things started to go wrong. It was really sad to see what we'd come to. On the positive side, we both remember our holiday last year being brilliant, also days out with the kids and Christmas. It was in December that we both really made the effort to turn things around, so things were much improved before he found out about this. But, we're both really glad that both of us are too stubborn to take failure and so we are still very together.

He's booked in to see his counsellor , and then we will take it from there. Basically, I will do whatever he wants.

Once again, thank you. It has all helped an enormous amount.

Having cheated on him I don't think you can expect much from him and do expect lots of hard days. He will have a lot of ups and downs to deal with, he is really suffering by the sound of it.

It's very promising that you are actually talking and both appear to want to make it work. Some marriages can become stronger after infidelity, hopefully yours is one of them and I wish you the very best of luck.

MonkeysAndPuzzles1, you're right, he is really suffering. He's the type that absorbs something, explodes, mulls it over and comes up with a million questions. And then repeat and repeat..... He's said he is trying to catch me out with my answers, but he's looking for word perfectly the same answers every time and then when that doesn't happen it means I'm lying and it all goes to bits again.

AntiqueSinger, thank you so much that's really kind of you. We do very much want to make it work. I think it helps that we've both had counselling, separately and mine was before we'd even met, so really do know just how important it is that we keep communicating. We 110% want this to work.

I'd definitely go for counselling, we actually talked about that earlier

Good idea.

Don't het gaslighted again when you see the evidence with your own eyes.

If you have joint counselling try asking for the truth about those messages that you know you saw.

Without trust on both sides...You have nothing.

I don’t suppose what you call it alters the fact that it was a betrayal. You feel as though your dh is putting you through the wringer but I’d invite you to read some of the threads of the betrayed women on this board. Not because I think you’re a hideous person or I’m judging you but because I think it will give you an insight into how he’s feeling and why he feels the need to keep questioning you. And perhaps give you an idea of what you can do to help him.

You say your dh has done things in the past but even if you want to see it or not this is a way of excusing your choices. Things were awful etc but you still made a conscious choice, I think you need to look into way you gave yourself permission to make that choice.

Counselling would be a good tool for you to explore why you made that type of choice and if staying together is truly what you want etc.

It’s going to take a lot of hard work and it’s going to be emotionally draining but you will come out the other end wiser even if you are a little battle scared (emotionally speaking). I wish you well. We are all only human and sometimes we make mistakes, your integrity is how you deal with those mistakes

Sorry I’m on my phone and I didn’t re-read that before I posted it

Thanks for this thread OP. I've done a similar thing and my dh has reacted in a similar way.

Mine was more involved and breaking contact has been very difficult

I would definitely recommend going to Relate together. They will help you unpick what led to the affair and look at the issues that were already there to see what led to it happening and for your dh to see his part in that too. That will hopefully make it easier for him to forgive you.

They will also hopefully help you to understand the process of recovery. The questioning is all part of the healing process. It's similar to the stages of grief where there's anger, questions and sadness to work through before being able to let go and move on.

Also I've had various counsellors before and they vary massively in quality. If you don't feel you're getting anywhere or don't take to the counsellor don't be afraid to ask for a different one.

There's usually a long wait for counselling so it's best to get the ball rolling asap.

In the meantime you could try getting a book and looking at it together? Relate do one "after the affair" and there's loads others on Amazon I haven't read them but they might help.

I think realistically most long term couples have something like this happen at some point even if it's only an emotional affair with texting. Part of coming to terms with it is to lose the Disney/ Hollywood image of an idealised perfect relationship and realise that relationships are hard work and once things get tricky lots of people make mistakes. It's not excusing it but it is about understanding it. Obviously not everyone will act on it but for me an emotional affair would be as hurtful as a physical one. For men they usually have a greater issue with the idea of someone having touched you physically. So it's about understanding that too.

Personally I don’t get the “ultimate betrayal” thing. Yes, you slept with someone else. He however neglected his relationship with you, gaslighted you and failed to show you adequate respect. It sounds like a death by a 1000 cuts.

It sounds lonely and destructive on both sides. On a positive side perhaps this is the wake up call you both needed - good luck. It sounds more than promising that you still really love each other despite everything that’s happened - harness it.