Help me forgive his affair

[DisneyMillie]

I discovered about 2 months ago that my DH had a 4 month physical affair with a much younger girl at work 3 years ago.

It started just before we had our dd and continued until our DD was about 4 months old during which time we were booking and planning our wedding (we married about 6 weeks after the affair ended).

I’m totally devastated, I thought we had the perfect relationship. We’re seeing therapists and it seems like it was the stress of a very difficult pregnancy after a previous miscarriage that probably “caused” it - not that that excuses anything but I understand that it was a distraction and I believe it wasn’t emotional.

I can see he is genuinely remorseful and is devastated that he’s hurt me and we both want it to work but I am struggling so much with accepting that the man I thought I knew has done something so awful - I feel it’s destroyed my memories of our wedding and birth of our child and I can’t understand however stressed how he’d have betrayed me like this.

Can anyone who’s been through this and forgiven give me any advice on how to accept things and try and move on. I seem to cope for a day and then I’m back on the floor sobbing and questioning him.

Also you need to examine your DH emotional dependancy on the females in his life.

If because of pregnancy and miscarriage he felt he cannot have someone sort out his sttsss because you were occupied with being vulnerable and so he needed to seek it from elsewhere, then he has an unhealthy dependency on u.

He needs to learn to be self sufficient in term of meeting his emotional needs. For his and your sake.

Stress doesn't cause men to have affairs. It maybe the catalyst but the cause was your DH. The cause was him not giving a shit about you. How many other men did you fuck in that stressful period?

Men have full control of themselves in the same way women do. When they have affairs they are actively chosing to fuck someone else, actively chosing to hurt you, actively chowing to ignore you in their lives basically. They don't forget, you can guarantee he will have thought "I have a partner" and then not thought, this means I should stop but instead thought "how can I get round this fact"

He's not devastated he's hurt you, he clearly doesn't care about hurting you or he wouldn't have done it.

He's only devastated you found out. He had an affair while you were pregnant with his child, after you had had a miscarriage,while you were planning your weddimg together?! This is not a man who cares one iota about your feelings.

It's your life and it's up to you if you stay with him, however if you are you have to accept that he doesn't care about your feelings, and he will do it again. He cares about the convenience of having a wife/family maybe, but only because it benefits him.

I don’t agree that he doesn’t care about her feelings.

It’s possible, but it’s not always true.

He might be just an impulsive man who doesn’t think his actions through. And only reflects on them when made to feel like a shot person.

And the issue is that there is no gaurantee that this will change. He might always stay this way.

Orr he might change, but you need to be able to see it.. you effectively want to change the personality of the person you married.

I don’t agree either about not caring about your feelings. He was presuming you wouldnt be in the position to know what he was up to.

I think all you can do if you don't want to leave is try not to think about it and try to play dumb and assume he is now faithful unless you get evidence to the contrary.

The 'therapists' are a joke.

I could perhaps see how someone who was stressed because their other half was constantly attacking/belittling them and not putting any effort in might end up having an affair; not that that makes it okay, but I can perhaps see how it could happen.

I don't really see how being stressed because your partner is beside themselves with grief after suffering a miscarriage leads to an affair, unless you are an insensitive asshat bothered only for own personal satisfaction who cares not one tiny bit for your partners welfare!

I will never forget an ex friend of mine who was a counsellor telling me she was going to train in marriage counselling because 'I can charge them more money'.
That really stuck with me, I have never trusted any counsellor after hearing that and think these two counsellors you've seen are quite the same mentality by the sounds of it

Both counsellors we are seeing said that stress can cause men to have affairs - I didn’t say it makes it right but perhaps understandable

.., and affairs can cause women to feel betrayed and leave their husbands. Totally understandable.

You don’t need to forgive him, what you need is to trust him and how can you when he did that when you were at your most vulnerable?

But if you want to forgive him, you can start for finding ways that involve less words and more action for him to recover your trust, yes, him working in recovering your trust, not you forcing yourself to turn a blind eye on so much hurt.

I agree with PP. Your DH needs to fully own what he has done. Not make any excuses. Stress does not make people have affairs.

On a practical side, I think that you need to protect yourself. Be as financially secure as you can possibly be on your own, make sure you work/retrain etc. I couldn't trust my entire future on a man who is disloyal so if I were to stay in a marriage after such a betrayal I would be putting my needs first and not be making sacrifices which could see me getting a raw deal in the future.

If he couldn't keep it in his pants whilst you were heavily pregnant, giving birth and dealing with a newborn and planning a wedding, I sure as hell wouldn't stake my whole future on him.

Why did the affair end OP? Did he end it or her?

It's more likely that an opportunity presented itself for him to have sex with another woman while he was lacking 'attention' from you what with being heavily pregnant and dealing with a newborn than 'stress'.

How will you ever know there weren't others if he's the sort of man who was prepared to fuck someone else whilst you were carrying his baby (when he should have been lavishing care on only you especially after a miscarriage) and in the run up to marrying you pledging himself to only you again, then blaming it on your miscarriage .

FGS please sack your current therapists and spend the money on a decent one for yourself, that you go to alone .

I think that if you’re determined to stay with him, you’ll have to accept that whilst you’ll be his primary sexual partner, you probably won’t be his only one. Don’t set too much store by fidelity, in other words, because you’re unlikely to get it. Learn to be philosophical about that. Perhaps channel early twentieth century aristocrats who didn’t tend to practise monogamy ...ie change your mindset.

Fwiw I think your bar should be much, much higher, but you wanted ideas about how to cope with staying with him, so there you are. Feel free - please! - to ignore it and see a solicitor instead.

No one is going to tell you that it will be fine and that they’ve come through it beautifully. They’ll just tell you how they’re managing to put up with it without feeling dreadful, after lots of counselling. Seriously, don’t you think life’s too short?

How can you move on? You'll know that during the time you needed him most he was getting his thrills with another woman on the side.

And what happens the next time you need to lean on him? He'll be lying leaning on another woman again. That's no life. Think about what you would advise your dd to do if she came to you with this scenario in the future.

And by the way, there are a lot of bad therapists out there whose only goal is to score a win - getting the couple reunited or "fixed". They don't care about what is best for the individuals in the marriage.

You don't have to forgive him in order to move on. You think that if you can forgive him that'll ease your pain. It won't. Whatever you do now you'll still have the pain.
If you want to stay with this man you'll need to accept that he's highly likely to cheat again at some point and you'll be back on the floor sobbing at him for explanations as per your first post. It's not a very good example to set your children is it? They'll usually model their future relationships on your marriage. Is that what you want for your kids?
It wasn't just the time he was enjoying fucking her - he's lied to you by omission every single day since. You've been living a lie. He has been a shit husband and I wonder if he also risked your sexual health too.
Never mind the surviving infidelity website. Get the Chump Lady book. It's much better advice in my experience.

Aw OP i wish you much luck. It would not be me - well it wasn’t as I chucked my Xh out when he cheated and it was the best thing I ever did. While I don’t agree with your choice - he will do it again - it is of course your choice to make.

I don't think affairs are black and white, and I do think that people can have them when they have stressful situations going on because they use them as an escape from everyday life.

However, while that may make me understand it more and possibly get to the point of forgiveness, I absolutely couldn't forget it and it would torture me every day. There are many threads on here like yours OP and for every hundred responses saying they couldn't ever forgive, it haunts them years later, they never felt the same again, they ended up leaving after X amount of years anyway, there might be only 1 who said they managed to forgive after time and therapy and end up happier. Those situations are very rare. The odds aren't in your favour.

Can anyone who’s been through this and forgiven give me any advice on how to accept things and try and move on. I seem to cope for a day and then I’m back on the floor sobbing and questioning him.

I have been through it and continued the marriage. Never forgiven. I don't believe that's something you ever get over. You will always wonder what he's doing when "working late" or going for after work drinks or working away or whatever reason he's not home.

I am over 15 years on and I still rehash it in my mind. I still wonder things in my mind and I am still wary when he is away for work or out. I just don't think you can ever forget it happened and forgive it. But I don't bring it up anymore. He would think it's silly to be still not over it this many years on. So it just eats me up instead.

To the outside world, we got through it and are happy and "strong" etc if you asked anyone who knew us. But really it ruined my life. I have never been the same and always wonder what if I had moved on and found happiness elsewhere. Why was I so weak to stay and let someone do that to me? But I don't want anyone to know that I am still so hurt by it and things from my angle aren't all roses.

So you will come across people who have been through it and look like they've come out the other side stronger than ever but that's what we want you to think. No one knows what the hurt party truly goes through or feels and we aren't likely to admit it to anyone we know. To be honest I'd have had trouble trusting ANYONE again after my experience. So I don't even know if I'd left then if I would have moved on happily with someone else. I'll never know so my advice to anyone going through it will always be to leave after being there myself. My life was ruined by it and you only get one chance at this life.

It was not an impulsive act.
He did this while you planned to spend the rest of your lives together and take vows of fidelity.
He slept with another, younger woman while you were pregnant with his child!
I do not believe that you can truly get over this. Would you seriously be deluded enough to think that what you do will stop him doing it again? That thought will always be in your head. He has despoiled your relationship.

I don't think affairs are black and white, and I do think that people can have them when they have stressful situations going on because they use them as an escape from everyday life.

We all have different views on this but I personally don't believe there is EVER an excuse for cheating..
I've read all the threads, seen people's excuses and reasons but am yet to come across a legitimate excuse. Cheaters are untrustworthy people who have no self respect or respect for others. If someone can cheat on someone they apparently love, I imagine they have no issues lying or cheating other relationships around them be they friends, family members etc. I would never trust a cheat in my life no matter what the connection.

May be tarnished by my own experiences but I feel very strongly about those who cheat and then come up with lame reasons to minimise what they are.

AlongTheWay your post is spot on. It's what I'd have said in my more honest moments before I caught STBXH messaging her again.

Both posts x

@AlongTheWay can totally relate 🙌

Alongtheway, it's not an excuse, but it can be an explanation. It doesn't mean it's a good explanation either, or a forgivable explanation, or an explanation that's any better than the cheater simply wanting to have sex with the other person, but I do think that sometimes people can act out of character due to stresses in life.

However as I said I wouldn't get past it anyway to the point that the relationship could recover, but I would probably forgive it as I moved on and think of the person as human, rather than demonise them, simply because it would be better for me not to be bitter etc. or to be going over the cheating in my head!

That's all good it can be an explanation but still doesn't make it acceptable or ok. In that regard to me it IS black and white there's never an excuse or reason to cheat regardless of the explanation as to why they did it.

They're still dishonest, disrespectful people IMO. And nothing can really change that, once it's done it can't be undone.

@thepinkp and @NomDeQwerty I am sorry you both have been there too :(

IMO there is a bit too much generalisation on here.
its not always men who have affairs
there are different triggers for affairs
there are people who make their marriages work afterwards - are they perfect marriages ? probably not - but then how many are?
its hard work to re-build a marriage and both partners need to make it work . Your fairy tale has been shattered but life is not always a fairy tale ,

Alongtheway, I personally think that sometimes people treat their partners in such a bad way that that explains why their partner cheats. Some things are just as bad as cheating. Some people make their partners feel like dirt, it's not surprising then if someone offers them comfort that they may grab that with both hands. I didn't think it was relevant in this thread so I didn't bring it up, but it's absolutely not black and white for me in that regard.

“Are they perfect marriages- probably not”

They probably weren’t before the affair either, at least for the one who commits adultey.

OP- good luck. You probably won’t find the
Answers you are looking for on here but people make mistakes and sometimes they can be rectified. Only time will tell.