If you found out your dh had had an affair for 16 months would you ...

[Eggid]

Throw him out? Even if he’s all you’ve ever known and you’ve been together for nearly 40 years? Even if he’s spent the 10 months since you found out doing all in his power to put things right?

Some days I want to kill myself. Some days I want to kill him. Most days I just don’t know what to do.

Please tell me what you would do given that we’ve been together since we were teenagers. Dc are all grown up and gone, and they don’t know anything.

Thank you.

I'm going through the same thing at the moment, just separated after months of trying. Once the trust has gone it is so hard to get back, as much as I loved him it was just to broken

Pisces - I’m sorry. It’s so hard isn’t it?

It is, but we are worth so much more :)

@TheStuffedPenguin "what planet are you on ?"

• the planet that knows far more about sexual betrayal, infidelity, PTSD, divorce and having my life taken away from me without my knowledge or my consent -

than I ever, ever wanted to know .

Like @Norabloom in my house, bed and bathroom and looking at pictures of our children, being in the room when I rang (his phone was always off).

The most traumatic thing that will ever happen to me. I still cry, 10 years later, he moved on straight away but not with OW.

I doubt I will ever have a relationship again firstly (even though intellectually I know, these are soul scars) I must be hideously unattractive and so unloveable to be treated like that and secondly - trust who?

It’s so hard to work out what to do. I am now in a beautiful place on a family holiday. DH obvs trying v hard but I keep thinking about the last time I was away with him when he was grumpy and cross and (I now know) texting OW and sending her ‘secret’ messages on Instagram.
She was liking my holiday photos and commenting on pictures of my son.
I despise DH for creating this mess. I’ve agreed to couples counselling when I get back but I don’t feel positive about it at all.
For those of you who have successfully restored your marriage - how did you deal with obsessing about the details of the affair and the slap in the face and total loss of self esteem?

For those of you who have successfully restored your marriage - how did you deal with obsessing about the details of the affair and the slap in the face and total loss of self esteem?

If there is any chance of this - it depends on the sustained behaviour of your DH and his 100% active focus on healing you - whatever it takes.

He hasn’t been emotionally injured, he hasn’t had his reality wiped out and been left deeply hurt, drained and blindsided.

He still has his emotional energy intact (probably more boosted by his affair) to try to fix this. There are 17 behaviours (How to heal your partner after your affair) that he can choose to implement. One is answering patiently and respectfully whatever and whenever is asked about the details of the affair - this is part of processing - talking it out. Otherwise it will just fester in your head.

If he does authentically engage then there is a chance of rebuilding......but at the end of the day it will be listening to your deep feelings “Do you respect and can trust this person”.

Our marriage drained on for four years before the divorce set us free
Three months after the decree insisted came thru and at 56 with children with their own lives I went on a dating site to meet a male companion for theatre dates; meals out, cinema and ended up meeting my second husband.

To have another man find me attractive again, I’m sad to say was a big and much needed ego boost after being so badly rejected by the first one and made to feel worthless and sexless

I grew up without brothers and sisters so I’ve always enjoyed male company and didn’t see why I couldn’t do so again.

I have lots of male friends as well as female ones.
None of them are like me ex...or like the man my ex turned out to be.

For those of you who have successfully restored your marriage - how did you deal with obsessing about the details of the affair and the slap in the face and total loss of self esteem?

There reached a point where it was a simple decision of whether I thought I would be happier with, or without him. My focus shifted to the future and I reached a certain level of ‘acceptance’. I shifted my focus to me and living my best life.

Obsessing about the details is awful, look at your relationship with him and think of those moments they didn’t, and never will share.
Christmas, family parties, looking after you when you’re sick, cooking you breakfast, all the real life stuff. I realised that what they shared was fantasy only and absolutely nothing compared to our marriage.

I do think that finding the reason/s for the affair is key though. It’s often a symptom of an unhealthy marriage but not necessarily always.

Thanks SO21. That’s helpful. My problem though is that dh and ow shared a lot of breakfasts, he cooked for her, allowed her into our home, drove her to work, she worked in our garden, he ruined at least 2 Christmases by engaging with her not his family. I’m struggling to think of things he and I shared without her to be honest!
Maybe I (and all the others going through this horrible thing) just need a lot more time to process it. Years not months?

Yes it is years. V much ricocheting back and forth through the stages of grief - in the end with less intensity and less often. Like grief you grown you life around it. And that’s if you leave or stay.

That is helpful SO21 in some ways, but like Nora, for at least 16 months, he was in touch or actually seeing her every day. And those days included all the significant events like birthdays, Christmas etc. I know they went for a walk somewhere we used to take our dc when they were little, went to restaurants we’d been to as a family etc, drove places in our car, he took her shopping etc. I’m fairly sure she never came to our house which is something.

I’m in the process of trying to forgive (if that’s ever possible) and move on with with DH after he had a 3 month affair. Even though it didn’t go on a long time I can’t stop thinking about the time they spent together. I’m dreading Xmas as it’s when it all started last year.
I hate thinking about it but some days like today I can’t stop. It’s the times like Xmas, my birthday, our anniversary that I just think back to those events (unfortunately all happened to be in those 3 months) and can’t believe he was probably thinking about her the whole time.
16 months is a long time and a lot to have to process. I’m told time will heal but I honestly don’t feel like that right now!

Primrose sorry that you’re in this horrible club. So many people having affairs it seems.

I have days when I literally cannot think of anything else. Dh doesn’t seem to understand the crippling blows he’s inflicted upon my self esteem/worth/confidence, or my feelings of not being good enough. I think he thinks that, because he’s dropped her, I should infer that I am indeed good enough and that he chose me. He can’t grasp the fact that there should never have had to be a choice.

He can’t grasp the fact that there should never have had to be a choice.

Have you told him that maintaining this attitude may well make him unforgivable? He doesn't sound very sorry. He sounds steps away from saying you're making a big deal out of nothing and should be over it by now... which is just about the opposite of what you need to have any chance at all of surviving this as a couple.

Anchor I’ve got to say that, for the most part, he’s making a huge effort. He just can’t seem to understand how, after months of reassurance/telling me he loves me etc, I still feel as if I am not good enough. And I can’t understand why he can’t understand!

Eggid you are SO right. I feel exactly the same. My DH keeps saying ‘what else can I do?’
I don’t know bit it’s probably never enough. I hate what he’s done and I hate what she did.

norabloom your dh was in a full blown relationship with ow. This meant more than sex so it is understandable that you are struggling to do with it. How dare your dh bring her into your home!

Eggid
How do your dh manage to see ow daily? Did he create late night work meetings?

Primrose
Was it a physical affair?
Did your dh confess?

The thing with long term affairs is the constant level of deceit required to keep it going. I believe this is what floors the betrayed spouse on discovery.

Pretending to take the dog for a walk or popping to the shop in order to call ow. Pretending to have late meetings to meet ow. Pretending to meet 'the boys' at the weekend to see ow and possibly roping them in to provide alibis. Reading and deleting messages from ow whilst sat with the family.

All the men mentioned on this thread should be on their knees begging and if taken back they should be rejoicing daily. It is a tough decision to stay and work on your marriage.

We have come back from DH having a ONS. 3 Yrs later, it has gotten easier, he has done everything to make it better. Pain fades, you don't forget it, but it gets easier . I am happy, our family is happy and I feel he got such a shock when I found out, it really knocked him. And rightly so. Best of luck op xx

My DH worked with the OW. In fact she worked for him and so did her husband. He paid her right through the affair. And created a job landscaping our garden so he could pay her more. And paid her a bonus at Christmas.

She used my house like it was her own. I have a serious issue with hatred right now!

I think the problem is ladies we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, we have Hs who are sorry and remorseful but sometimes it’s notvwhat they can do to make it right, it’s what they can’t do and that is turn back the clock- sometimes whatever they do it won’t be enough because we can’t see them in the same way. I do realise some do get over it, I think this is very dependent on the nature of’what it was’ . Like you Nora, I was actually paying this young woman and aiding my Hs infatuation by being very cool about business trips together , popping around to help her with her computer etc and fucking paying her as well to feed my Hs mid life crisis/ego. If I had found out fully at the time instead of 11 years later he would have been out

We'd been together 20 years and we split up. But he had been pretty unpleasant for the time he was having the affair - I'd guessed, and then read all the old emails and saw all the details. And although we had got on fine as husband and wife, looking back he was always doing his own thing. I thought he was a workaholic but actually he was just leading his own separate life and not that into the home or family. So it wasn't a hard decision to make, to split up, even though that time was awful, and I had just the same feelings of everything being turned on its head.

This was 5 years ago when I was 45, and since then I've had a bit of fun with new partners. Not looking to settle down again yet, but there certainly seem to be plenty of other people in the same boat as me; I don't feel like the odd one out in a game of musical chairs!

I've got myself a new place, made some changes in my life so that I have more support and things going on, and actually feel a lot better about myself; the fears about an unknown future have dissipated.

And after a couple of years the intrusive thoughts, anger and fears settled down and we managed to divorce perfectly civilly. Now, when we meet up, I can sometimes remember why I married him in the first place. Don't want to get back together, but the raging anger has certainly gone.

From this place, I can start to understand why some people stay with their unfaithful partners. But I don't think I'd have got to this place if we had stayed together.

Some people divorce and then marry again years later. The decision you make now isn't necessarily irreversible. One thing that has helped me is to give up on the idea that I know my future; to accept uncertainty.

Do whatever makes you feel happier.

We had been together 23 years when I found out DP had been having an affair with someone he worked with.

It completely floored me and I had never felt pain like it.
I discovered text messages on his phone.
But Dd2 had a English exam the following day so I kept it to myself.

When it all came out ,he was genuinely sorry and did everything he could to put things right.
We stayed together and it's been 13 years since I found out.

I am not the same person as I was.
I am completely different, I pretty much just do my own thing and he is welcome to come along but the days of me planning my spare time around his availability are long gone.
I don't celebrate anniversary's anymore as I feel they were meaningless.
We travel a lot and do spend time together but my love for him is not the Same, he broke it and although we are together it can't ever be the same.