We can’t seem to recover from affair

[Cantbefixed]

I had a long term affair and confessed to my husband 8 months ago.
He says he has forgiven me and wants us to move forward but every day he brings it up.
Sometimes comments about the other man or he says the justifiable but vicious things he thinks of me which I sit there and take because it’s my fault.
Other times we have full screaming rows that end up with both of us saying nasty things.

We haven’t been intimate since years before the affair.
Now he wants to but it’s the last thing I want after he’s screamed at me and told me what a bitch/whore/etc I am.
I do still think about the other man and when things are so bad with my husband I think of him even more.

I feel like we’ll never get over this and most of the time I feel empty and don’t want to try but I know I have to for our children who are all at a tough emotional age 11, 13 and 15.
He thinks he’s making effort but he still talks me like shit and I’m still only the cook/cleaner/mother who looks after the manchild I married and our children.

We wouldn’t go to a counsellor because he can’t handle any criticisms about him or the reasons why I did what I did.

Is there any hope? Please tell me if you did manage to fix things and how long it took or if you didn’t when you called it the end. Thank you x

Separate
You had an affair you don't want him.he doesn't want you.
Work out with kids where they want to live and contact with each parent. Do it.now before gcse year.
Go.to your own counsellor

if he really wanted to move forward he wouldn’t talk about it or bring it up

This is called rugsweeping and the comment shows you have little experience or knowledge about the pain caused from infidelity.

OP... something stood out to me. He says he doesn't want to hear any criticism of himself. Well firstly, a good counsellor doesn't criticise and secondly...what does he think he needs to be criticised for?

I suggest you look at www.survivinginfidelity.com

A really helpful resource for betrayed and the wayward spouse .. I do hate the term wayward BTW.

Many people on that site have been where you are and you won't be judged.

Ultimately, you can also call time on the marriage too.

Some of the advice here is so helpful, thank you for your time.

He wants to reconcile because he says he loves me/for our children/he sees divorce as him failing/there is an element of him proving he is better than the other man which makes me feel even more shit about what I’ve done/the financial implication/that he doesn’t want to be alone.

I want to reconcile for about half of those reasons and I know we can’t walk away without trying but I do feel as if after trying so hard that we’re worse than ever.

That it can take 2-5 years to heal fills me with dread of having another 4 years like this.
An earlier poster commented on the constant fear that the affair restarts and my husband is the same. I’ve given him access to everything, my phone and computer and work emails and he has find my iPhone so always checks I’m where I say am. Even popping to shops without one of the children causes a comment to be made like am I going to see him and is that why I won’t take one of the children. This is all ok with me because I know I need to earn his trust but I can’t live like this forever.

It's really not working though, and you'll put both yourselves and your children through a lot of strain in trying to salvage the relationship. I think you both need to face up to the fact that it's over.

but I can’t live like this forever.

You have broken his trust and it can take forever to heal that - imo it never truly heals

What's the point of being with him? For the kids? Because they will sense the unhappiness and the atmosphere already. Why continue to put them through this?

You had an affair because you weren't happy

You're still not happy

Your husband isn't happy

If he had posted I'd tell him that he'd feel really shit for a bit but it's great not having to worry about what/where/who your spouse is with. My ex left after an affair and he gave me FindmyIphone access to him but it made me even more paranoid- I'd assume that his phone was on his desk at work or in the car while he was doing god knows what with OW or that he'd made a secret email account to continue the affair. It is a massive weight off your mind where you can counter these negative thoughts with "Not my problem anymore"

While he may think that you've picked him, you're thinking about the OM so the reconciliation is a lie. It's clearly far too late to fix this marriage and should have ended years ago. It's grim living like that - even worse for the kids who can't escape it.

I can’t live like this forever.

I suspect that people who reconcile still have bad days decades down the line. Splitting allows proper self reflection and a chance for everyone to be happy.

Ffs. You had a long term affair. You and your marriage partner haven’t had sex for years. You expect it all to be hunky dory? Split up.

Who ended the affair and did you tell your husband or did he find out?

You haven’t disclosed how long your affair was for. I’ll go out on a limb, and suggest it was a good deal longer than 8 months.

You will get a relatively easy ride here, but you need to get real, are you hanging around to salve your conscience and leave a few months later saying “at least I tried”, or a real attempt to rescue what you have broken ?

Based on what you’ve written so far, I think it’s the former

He wants to reconcile because he says he loves me/for our children/he sees divorce as him failing/there is an element of him proving he is better than the other man which makes me feel even more shit about what I’ve done/the financial implication/that he doesn’t want to be alone.

He sees letting go as a failing of his. That’s the nub.

You started this latest ball rolling, ultimately you now need to do the right thing and arrange to leave so that he can heal and you can both learn from this.

Some couples can work through affairs, but it’s less likely when she is the one who strays

You’re not going to be able to work through this without an enormous amount of change.

There were huge problems in the marriage before your affair- and time and again I’ve said that no partner should ever be surprised if the other one strays when sex is withheld or allowed to dwindle to nothing for years

Yes you should tackle this issue without going elsewhere, but life is seldom so perfectly organised and we as individuals can find addressing our issues difficult/impossible and this is a common result. Communication is key. Especially when you have kids and routine and stuff to get in the way of the “us” that was you before it all this

It seems like you are hanging in there because you want to be able to say that your H ended the marriage and that you'd tried your best for the kids. Without changing what is presumably the fundamental reason for the affair (affection), there was never a chance to fix it. It's too late as you can't face doing it and you're thinking of the Other Man anyway.

I was the one cheated on and felt the way your dh does when we tried to reconcile. I didn't trust him one bit afterwards and whenever he went somewhere, I truly believed that he was meeting up with her again. I hated him, but loved him iyswim and we also tried to make it work as our dc were the same age as yours are now.

It didn't work out. We have now been divorced a year. We stayed together for another 6 years after his first affair. Yes first, as he went on to have another during this time.

But the long and the short of it was, I lost all trust for him and those 6 years were a living hell for me mentally.

I am so much better off now, and so are the dc. Its not always better for them for parents to be together.

My ex had an affair 18 years ago. My blood still boils when I think of it , and I've been divorced for 15 years. The pain doesn't go away and you don't get over it.

I'd suggest that you separate and get a divorce - your kids won't thank you for staying under these circumstances. They'll know and they'll come to hate both of you for putting them through this.

Have you done any reading together.
Not just friends by Shirley Glass is meant to be a good book to read together.
The betrayal of an affair never really goes away.
If he won't agree to counselling then I'm not sure what more you can do.
But don't let your DC grow into adulthood in this environment.
It's not fair on them.

8 months is nothing. 2-5 years is the oft quoted recovery time but even then that's just anecdotal.

Are either of you in any sort of counseling?

It doesn’t sound like the poor guy has much self-worth because if he did he would off-load you in an instant. He shouldn’t see divorce as a failing he should see it as a blessing. The only failure here is yours.

He wont be able to forgive you. A long term affair is different to a one nighter after too much tequila. A long term affair takes deception, lying and subterfuge to a whole other level. I never forgave my ex when he did it the first time, and then spent two years fighting with him and sure enough he went and did it again. Whilst blaming me for not "properly forgiving" the first affair. He went on like there is some kind of target whereby you're being totally unreasonable if at that point you haven't forgiven the person you loved most in the world for their absolute betrayal.

For your childrens sake please end this.

My ex left after an affair despite the fact that I wanted to reconcile. I now know that he did me a favour. It's changed me and caused me lots of tears and anger but there's weeks/months where I don't think about him or his affair which is a freedom like no other. I'm 7 years down the line btw and he has been very reasonable about the divorce/money/kids. If there had been problems there is probably be more angry,

I found out around the same time that my DW had been having an affair for 6 months.

I still think about it every day, many times. Nearly every situation that comes up between us and it springs into my mind. It really is all consuming and incredibly tiring having to constantly battle against the negative thoughts that it has helped to breed.

In one respect we are lucky, we have a very healthy love life and we are incredibly close, doing everything together in our free time. But that doesn't change how I feel and I do from time to time bring it up despite agreeing when we decided to work at our relationship that it would not be a subject that we discussed as it is very difficult for her (I'm ok discussing it as it happens).

It sounds to me like this is eating your husband up and because you also do not have that closeness that he is likely thinking that you don't want that as you only find other men attractive. He won't be thinking that I need to be kind so that she feels close to me. He'll be feeling like a victim rather than taking responsibility for his part in the affair.

And that all makes sense, it's easy to think well you had the affair and I never would so therefore you are 100% in the wrong and I am justified in being angry at you but you cannot be angry at me.

Either you need to face facts together and agree to move on or it's over. I don't personally feel like it's too late as it is early days for you but there does seem to be an issue that you may well never get past.

You yourself should also see that this is not a case of you are solely to blame. Affairs don't tend to happen for no reason and like you say, there is little to no intimacy there prior to it so addressing that could be a good place to start a conversation with DH.

Best of luck x

Leave.

There is no fixing this.

Your children will have heard every nasty word, nasty name, accusation and they will never forget it. My father was the one using multiple affairs, we were never told, but my god I knew all the details.

You are already damaging your children by bringing them up in an abusive household - because affair or not, this is abuse.

This is not about sunken costs, owing him anything, needing to earn trust or any other self-imposed purgatory.

Leave. For everyone's sake. Protect your children from this life..

The emotional fallout for your children will be far greater if you stay. The same reasons you chose to have an affair are the same reasons you should walk away now.

You have a bad marriage and your collective reasons for staying (him saving face and your guilt) will never be a foundation for recovery,

There’s nothing to salvage here. Leave before the resentment, contempt and all round toxicity of your relationship hurts your children and their future ability to form healthy relationships.

The only failure here is yours
Well we actually don't know all the facts.
I could not cope with a sexless marriage.
But neither would I stay with someone who cheated on me.

He wants to reconcile because he says he loves me/for our children/he sees divorce as him failing/there is an element of him proving he is better than the other man which makes me feel even more shit about what I’ve done/the financial implication/that he doesn’t want to be alone.

None of those are very good reasons. Love doesn't save everything and it seems that it's not saving this. The rest relate to him wanting to feel like he's "won" against the other man, and not wanting to fail. I hate to fail, but the marriage is failing anyway. You're not suddenly winning by staying together, even if it's awful. You're both just wasting more time and further hurting your children.

Are you strong enough to suggest a trial separation?

OP,

It sounds awful and it sounds over.
Clearly the relationship wasn't working for a long time.

Please now put your children first.
This must be so hard for them.
Believe me they know that your marriage is over and they are living with a terrible dread and stress in their young lives.

Despite what your husband says he wants, the marriage is over for him and it's his ego that is controlling things now.

You need to make a plan to separate. For your children and for the good of the whole family.

Good luck.