Can you get over cheating?

[telechest]

I'll try to keep this short

OH cheated on me at the beginning of last year, we have been together a fair few years but for various reasons don't live together so we didn't see each other and had NC for maybe a month. I ended up relenting and talking to him, all was 'forgiven' and life carried on

Fast forward to now and I feel like old wounds have been reopened. As far as I know he hasn't cheated again (ignorance is bliss) but the pain of what he did last year has resurfaced and he can't understand why I'm still upset about it

I would love for things to work out between us but can a relationship ever be saved/the same after one of you cheating?? We now have a 2 month old ds so splitting up will be extra painful and hard to get over as I can't just have a 'clean break' (although we still live separately so maybe that'd make things easier?)

Has anyone's relationship genuinely survived cheating - where you're both happy and have truly moved on? Or do I just call it a day?

Ester Perel is offering advice to people who want to stay together. You can't do that without finding reasons for cheating. I haven't seen her Ted talk(s?), but I like the podcasts - they go into a lot of detail - even though I could never imagine myself "working on a relationship" quite that hard. She suggests what you could do to improve things. Even if you see that one or both of you wouldn't be able to take those steps, that in itself is helpful. Worth having a listen and making up your own mind.

I tried my absolutely utmost to stay together. Didn't you read, Ravenmum 7 years I tried.

Here is the thing that Imago theory and the Gottmans and Esther Perel don't take into account:

In order to cheat, you have to not care how much it will hurt the other person, and you have to put your own need for pleasure above thinking about the other person. You also (for extended affairs) have to be pretty good at having a 'split self' in order to compartmentalise.

Well, there are words for that, like narcissist and sociopathic, not 'mistake' or 'act of exuberant aliveness'.

Infidelity is abuse. It is an act of HUGE aggression against the unsuspecting person. Cheated upon people do not have a trauma response just because they are neurotic.

And that is what is so devastating about intimate betrayal. Its not just that the person you love and trusted over all other people stabbed you in the back. Its that you find out how little you mean to them and how little they care for you.

I absolutely hold my hands up to the things I did wrong (mostly not holding my ground and living my life). But I never deserved to be cheated on and treated so badly.

It is interesting that so called 'primitive' societies put adulterers to death in deeply painful ways, like stoning them to death. I have found that they are actually the most clear about the damage affairs do. It is like dropping a stone in a pond. There is the initial disruption, then widening ripples of pain and damage spreading out. I no longer intellectualise about affairs now I have been touched by the Gift that keeps on Giving. I was absolutely devastated by the experience. Life is better without his selfish BS in it and I am a much stronger person; but my hope and innocence are gone.

You're a better woman than me, @ScreamingLadySutch, as I didn't try at all :) He went off with his OW, who cheated on him a few years later. Listening to the Ester Perel podcasts after he'd gone, I felt I'd done the right thing, as I wouldn't have been able to do what she suggested.I found that useful.
Even without him there, as I said above, it still took me years to stop actively hating him. I do think that if you try and try, unless both people are trying together, there's a risk that it could just compound the hatred.

Totally agree with ScreamingLady.

@Screamingladysutch is spot on.

I think that you can get over it if the other person 'gets it' (the damage they have caused), apologises fully and then looks AT THEMSELVES - the selfishness, the capacity to deceive - changes their behaviour.

That was what I hoped for in the 7 years, and sadly I was with a common or garden narcissist (diagnosed professionally) with some old fashioned misogyny thrown in (Big Red Flag to young women: phnar phnar jokes)

There was a bloke on here in the early days who admitted to cheating and went on in counselling to examine his behaviour. One of the most telling things he said apart from the fact that he was a selfish twat and that hurting her was so painful for him, is that he never realised how dishonest he was .... allowing his wife to believe stuff without correcting her assumptions, because he got away with so much that way.

That man? I would have fallen even more deeply in love with and that genuinely is a better relationship. How common is that integrity though.

My highly qualified therapist said that in all his time of practise, he only ever saw one couple get over an affair. Because that man came into the session every week and just sobbed at what he had done. He 'got it' and the wife could see that.

OP I can empathise hugely with you. Each situation and set of involved people is unique so it’s easy for us all to sit here and judge. I’m 6 years post finding out about my husband’s affair. We’re still together and have had a further child (we already had one, he was less than aged 1 at the time when I found out). I am quite a tough cookie, not usually someone to take much shit (as the OW found out) but YET.... I’m still here!
I can’t forget what he did and for a year afterwards I was a big mess. We told very few people, although we did go to Relate. It sometimes hits me what he did, like a punch in the gut, although this is getting better. He did immediately cut contact with OW, and he did engage fully with trying to repair our marriage. It was hard, incredibly so. However we did come out the other side. It takes a lot out of you thought, me and my self esteem will never be the same. I stayed initially for my baby, I’ll admit it, but after a few years we were once again happy on the whole.
However and there’s a “but” coming.....now, I feel the cracks are showing and I don’t know if this is because the affair knowledge will always be there or whether that would be the case anyway regardless. My self esteem is damaged, I feel I am not enough. I’ll admit he wasn’t the love of my life when I married him. So judge as you will.... you can recover after an affair but it’s hard and puts extra pressure on your marriage and yourself. Now I feel it was perhaps a mistake to stay and I did it for the wrong reasons - I didn’t want her to “win” (silly now, I see that) and I couldn’t face single parenthood with a needy baby alone. I don’t know what the outcome will be now.
Good luck, tread carefully. Xx

I think it depends on whether he is genuinely remorseful or not. If he's not ditch him. Also I think you have to live with the fact that if someone can cheat once they can do it again. Having just divorced a cheating husband I can honestly say you will be ok.

I didn't even try to get over it

Why would I? I'm worth more than that.

So sorry OP. I took a cheater back (I was pregnant). I never really trusted him again and our relationship ended after another (year long) affair. Several other indescretions were then revealed. It has been almost a year and although it has been hard on my child (he cut her out of his life 8 months ago to continue with the OW), the horrible feeling of uncertainty has gone. It took me a while to realise, but he simply viewed affairs as his 'right'. He deserved holidays / nights out etc. with the OW because he 'worked hard'.

I know it is so so tough with a baby, but please don't put yourself in a situation where you live with a feeling of uncertainty and inability to talk to your partner about your feelings. In my experience ( for what it is worth), if he can't be completely open and take responsibility, it will never work.

Lots of couples can survive infidelity.
Many more don't.
It depends on you and what you want.
It depends on your boundaries and your self-confidence.
I couldn't forgive. But cheating is a deal-breaker for me.
That's why I have an ExH and an ExP.
It's not for lots of people though.
He does need to understand your POV though.
Without that then there is no moving on.
He wants you to 'shut the fuck up' about it all and just brush it under the carpet.
You don't want to do that and nor should you.
So he either gets on board with trying to understand what you are going through or he fucks off.
Your life - YOUR decision.

This is why Exs should always stay exs

Your going to need to get a little self control and not go back to exs

there really is no other help.

I couldn't get over it, and I tried for 7 years
He just wanted me to STFU and move on. The only person he felt sorry for, was himself

This. I tried too but exH wasn’t remotely remorseful and was only sorry that he was caught. He continued to deny the affair even with incontrovertible proof.

He saw himself as the victim of OW and then of my unreasonableness when I couldn’t get over it in 10 mins.

He didn’t think was his job to repair the marriage. He considered the fact that he stayed with me to be reward enough for me, even though OW dumped him.

I was all nice and understanding and sympathetic and helped him clean up the mess created at work by his affair ( she was his subordinate and stole money from the company).

I spent weeks helping him go through work files to find the documents required by the fraud investigators and solicitors. I supported him during the court cases which went on for three years.

I went to marriage counselling and listened to him drone on about his childhood and the stress of his job and why nothing he did was ever his fault. I even organised, paid for and arranged babysitting for the sessions.

I rearranged my work so we could have some time alone without the children. He then used this time to do things himself leaving me at home alone fuming.

He acted like a total shit for most of the time, saying things like “ well you won’t believe me whatever I say so there’s no point in trying “.

I kept trying to make it work for the sake of the children.

And then the bastard did it again.

I tried for four years to get over it but it didn't work and her lies and affair or friendship as she now calls it continued. She had an affair with a work colleague and then decided it was ok for them still to work together and be friends.