Surviving an EA

[Trustingmygut]

Regular user, name changed to an old account to post this.

Background, been together 18 years, 2 kids, both work full time. In April i could feel DP pulling away from me, i asked him about it but he denied anything was wrong, asked him if there was someone else, he denied it.

I then caught DP having an EA with a mutual friend. He stopped it when i found out, I am still in contact with the friend. DP has claimed she was only a friend and he was talking to her about being unhappy etc, but he was straying into EA territory, hiding it all from me, deleting messages etc. I dont think friend would have done anything she was just enjoying the attention, not so sure about DP if he would have gone there. During the row he said he didnt love me.

We are working on things and to be honest things are now more like before the issues started that made him unhappy, my gut says he is genuine, he says that he does love me and seems more loving and "normal", i am pretty sure he is genuine as i can feel it if that makes sense.

But my emotions are everywhere, it is a few weeks later and i am still up and down like a rollercoaster, i sometimes get overwhelmed by sadness and despair, but to him nothing is wrong as i present the best, happy version of me. I am a paranoid, jealous, nervous, anxious mess, i keep checking to see what he is doing on his phone or ipad (only when he is one them as i have no access to them), but he is being better about leaving his phone lying around and not being glued to it (although that was nothing new). I feel he is trying too and seems happy again.

To anyone else who has been in this situation, did you survive this? How long did it take to feel normal again? How are things now? Did you get through it?

Please no LTB at the moment i am not strong enough emotionally to do that right now, i just need to know that you can survive this.

I would suggest keeping the mutual friend at a distance. In fact no contact with either of you.

I would suggest counselling or discussions with dh about why he betrayed you by discussing your marital issues with an outsider. This was extremely dangerous.

Your dh deleting the messages means he knew it was wrong. If messages were above board/appropriate they would still be found on his phone.

As painful as it may be, you also need to explore dh stating he did not love you.
Was it said in anger? To cover his guilt?

I would be broken if dh discussed the state of our marriage with an outsider, particularly a woman.

Read Shirley glass ‘not just friends’ and ask him to read it too. It describes how people are either a friend to your marriage or an enemy. Also sets out how emotional intimacy is created and destroyed. It will inform you both and whether or not he reads it will give you a good indication about his commitment to you/motivation to change and take responsibility for his actions. My stbxh didn’t even open it when we were in this situation

Hi op. Sorry you're going through this. Two things here: firstly, why haven't you cut this so called friend out of your life? Secondly why are you putting a front up with your dp and hiding your devastation and suffering?
Both of those things suggest to me you may be a people pleaser who puts others before herself. It's time to change that. In order to heal yourself and repair the damage to your relationship, you need to be absolutely honest about how much he's hurt you. You need to able to speak openly about this, not hide behind a jolly facade. And right now he doesn't deserve your happy best self. Only then can the work of repairing the trust begin.

Please cut your friend loose. She's no friend.

I second Shirley Glass, and why on earth are you still friends with the friend. She may not have wanted a full affair but she was still being inappropriate with your DH and that is not a friend.

I am still friends with her as if she is talking to me about her problems with her BF then she is not talking to DP, if that makes sense. I am trying to break the habit of him contacting her and by being mates with her she wont speak to him.

I cant tell DP how i feel as it is case closed with him and even mentioning it causes a reaction, i dont cry infront of him as again he goes mad, i believe it to be guilt. But nothing gets sorted and i am left feeling like this.

He said he didnt love me as he was unhappy and we had drifted which is why he confided in our friend. But he has since back tracked on that and told me a week later that he does love me. He seems more his normal self.

No point in counselling as he will not go, i will look into it for me, my head is so messed up i cant think straight, i cant concentrate on anything, i am like a puppy who just want to be with him and having crumbs of his affection, i need to get a grip. My head just keeps spinning with my emotions all the time.

OP, it may be “case closed” for your DP, but it most certainly isn’t for you.
How dare he get angry and upset if you need to express your feelings about it!
So what if it makes him feel guilty- he IS guilty, and he can’t just make a casual apology and expect it all to be magically forgotten the next day.
He must be made to accept the fact that he has badly hurt you, and that you need time, discussion and acknowledgement of your fully warranted feelings of hurt, anger, betrayal and loss of trust, before EITHER of you can move on.
Please stop putting on a good face, burying your pain and pretending all is well. This is a festering septic wound, and you need to get the poison out in the open or it will never heal.
If you can’t talk to him yourself, he needs to agree to couples counselling so the discussion can be mediated by a neutral third party.

He is stonewalling you. That is emotional abuse.

I am still friends with her as if she is talking to me about her problems with her BF then she is not talking to DP, if that makes sense. I am trying to break the habit of him contacting her and by being mates with her she wont speak to him.

This is a fool's errand, OP.
Ultimately, if you have to emotionally eviscerate yourself by listening to your betraying "friend" OW witter on about her self inflicted relationship problems ... just so your twat of a husband doesnt get back in there ... you have neither friend nor marriage.

Take a very cold, hard look at how your life is right now and think about what it could be without these two emotional parasites in it.

Stonewalling and gas lighting. He’s created the perfect situation for him now. You now tread on eggshells too scared to confront him or be anything other than “stepford happy wife” for fear of him turning to the friend. You also now have to keep her close out of fear. Fear is now dictating your life/actions/relationships. You don’t get to be you or state your own feelings/opinions. Has he even apologised for what he did? Talking to another woman and shutting you down. Has he owned that behaviour. How is he actually truly changing if he refuses to go to counselling? He’s playing games and I have a feeling you are going to end up getting very hurt/betrayed.

If he was truly, truly remorseful he would answer your questions and tell you everything you ask so that your new start would be with everything in the open.

If he was truly, truly remorseful he would answer your questions and tell you everything you ask so that your new start would be with everything in the open.

When it all first came out he was truthfull and told me everything, but he wont revisit it or talk about it again, but i didnt really push any questions as i was out of my mind with shock and grief and i couldnt think, i wish i had asked more and demanded more from him, but that ship has sailed.

There is a serious issue if you have to stay close to your 'mutual friend' to avoid her off loading on your dh. If he cannot/refuses to cut contact then he is more deeply involved than you first thought.

He needs to understand he can no longer have contact with her.

Any man who wants to rebuild his marriage will answer any questions no matter how many times they are asked, he won't get annoyed if you cry and say you aren't over it.

The actions of your husband are not the actions of someone who wants to work on his marriage.

OP - you sound very similar to me 17 years ago.
I discovered my husband had an EA with another woman (not someone we knew, a stranger from somewhere), I was beyond devastated, he refused to discuss it, deleted all the messages and threatened suicide if I ended the marriage.
I was so embarrassed I told no one and after a few weeks we continued on as normal with it all brushed under the carpet as he denied it and refused to talk.
I was a wreck, I had no trust for him, I checked all his devices constantly. My heart really was broken but I could not get the answers I needed.
After a while I stopped checking his devices so much and then I would get a niggling feeling so I would check and low and behold he was messaging women again - same scenario as before, delete messages/snap SIM card or destroy device and deny, threatened to kill himself again but did eventually admit to the original EA from before. All would be swept under the carpet and we would carry on again but with even more of my heart broken but of course I was being daft and he wouldn't discuss it.

Fast forward 7 years and I made the decision to leave when DD was 18 (10 years to wait), I got my affairs in order, stopped checking what he was up to and bided my time.

8 years later something drew me into checking his phone and I found he had been messaging other women again, this time I told him our marriage was over and as much as he pleaded and begged there was no going back for me.
I told everyone as I knew how easy it would be to continue on and after 2 weeks he realised I was serious (2 weeks was generally how long it took to kiss and make up)and he found somewhere to live and moved out 1month after the marriage ended.

I know you want stories of people who have got through it but very few people actually do, I know you are not emotionally strong enough to leave, I thought I wasn't but I was.

Please don't be like me and in 17 years bitterly regret wasting so many years on a twunt!!

This is a depressing situation that will only get worse.

“Case closed” - what a cheek!

Sorry - you wanted reassurance that things can improve - but you won’t get any whilst he’s behaving like this.

Others have said it. My DH had an EA, for months he had to put up with my bad days. Sometimes things trigger a thought or a question, some days you just don't have the self confidence to deal with it. Every time I had a melt down, he was there, it wasn't fun for either of us but he went over things every time I needed to hear it. He also completely blocked her and came to counselling with me. Your DH may well find it uncomfortable but if he means it he has to suck it up and be there for YOU when YOU need it. He broke it, he has to work to fix it. The fact she is now using you as a sounding board and you allow it in case it starts up with your DH again is not good. She is obviously completely self absorbed. Sack her off and if your DH can't keep himself away, sack him off, you can't be marshal, it will eat you alive. If your DH means it he will do EVERYTHING he can to keep you, if he doesn't, you can't fix it alone, it's not a one man job.

Trusting, you must be honest about your suffering. You cannot continue living this way.

Your H is manipulating you with his “case closed” attitude to make you shut up and back off. He is selfishly dictating the terms of your recovery. You do not have to tolerate his emotional coercion. Suppressing your feelings will make you ill. Stop pretending.

As the betrayed spouse, you get to choose what you need to heal. If H was truly remorseful and committed to rebuilding trust, he would be willing to discuss your feelings and answer your questions whenever you needed him to. He would also reassure you without being prompted, and would attend counseling to strengthen his boundaries, as he felt entitled to betray you and pursue an ego boost.

Please stop doing the pick-me-dance by keeping OW onside and away from H. Surely he has agreed to completely cut contact with her anyway. If not, why?

You would benefit from individual.counseling. If you are going to stay, you must prioritize your healing and recovery and insist that H does, too. Many therapists estimate that it can take up to two years.

Oh my god you can't even cry or reveal how you truly feel about his betrayal because he's angry. You're not being honest disguising your true feelings to stay married to him?