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.

My question isthebigwomanhere is that I could maybe live like that, but do you still have to sleep with him and display any kind of affection for him?
I hate it if dh even touches my arm now.

I know people who know her, and she is not in a good place apparently. I almost feel that I want to reach out and comfort her. Such a mess.

This was my reaction to OW for a while when I found out and I think she felt the same about me In her own twisted way. However, she didn't give a shit about you, or your feelings. She is utterly irrelevant and you cannot let her have power over you to "feel" her. You feel the way you do because you're a decent reasonable person, a good human. She isn't. It's taken me a while to learn the lesson of not having feelings about the OW because it was my partners decision to have the affair. I felt angry at her and sorry for her. But now, I realise she doesn't matter. What matters is living with someone who has consistently lied and shown you who they truly are. I'm in this very position and my relationship is slowly dying. I've known for five months, the affair lasted a year. He left to move in with her (only after I'd discovered a joint bank account.). He regrets it, he's very fucking sorry and he wishes he could turn the clock back. He loves me

@Norabloom I actually don't mind sleeping with him . It's the little displays of affection I can't stand. Hand holding or rubbing my back. It sounds weird and I can't really explain it but sex is just sex but the affection means nothing

OMG @isthebigwomanhere you are my absolute heroine. That is exactly how I feel. I can’t stand the touching and the sad face and the making me coffee. I want to scream I utterly despise you.
I have just asked him ‘do you think OW had to take drugs to be with her husband because I have to take 2 Valium and a glass of wine before I can spend an evening with you’
He replied ‘she’s a horrible shallow woman and I wish I’d never met her’
But the thing is - I don’t really care now.

@Norabloom That is exactly it , I genuinely don't care anymore.
Stay if you're staying, go if you're going but I'm going nowhere and he knows this.
When I found out, my main concern was not screwing up Dd2s exams.
The fact that I had to control my internal anger and act normal just completely changed me.
No amount of sweet talking will ever change me back.
I am who I am and you made me this way!
Stay if you want but you are not priority anymore, won't be priority ever again and there is no barbed wire fence keeping you here.
The decision is yours but this is the reality.
He stayed. We get on but it not and never will be what it was.

OMG you have just changed my life @Isthebigwomanhere
I don’t have to care about him or what he does or anything. I don’t have to give a shit about the couples counselling or his fucking bad back or his business. I just have to care about mr any my son and my little dog.
Why do you think they stay under these circumstances?

Honestly @Norabloom I've no idea.
It's not a bad life we have now.
Just a totally different one.
I'm not scared of being alone.
I'm not afraid of a life without him.
And he knows that

Oh OP, I'm so sorry.
Forty years is a long time and in my eyes worse than if you had been married ten or even five years, it's a lifetime together and he has totally betrayed that and I couldn't forgive that.

how awful op have you spoken to anyone in rl?

What would I do?
I would ask him to leave, not necessarily for ever but certainly until further notice.
I don't think I'd be able to look at him let alone share a house with him.
Then I'd get counselling (for myself, not couple's counselling).
I think the separation would end up being permanent, barring some kind of miraculous reconciliation with support from an excellent couple's therapist. (Even then, I still don't think my love for him would recover, even if he was "perfect" in his remorse.)
So far this is thankfully theoretical and I hope I never have to find out whether it's what I would actually do.

I found out at the end of June that my DH had a ONS with the office marriage wrecker. An email arrived in my inbox one afternoon from a third person who had heard her bragging about it at work, thought she was out of order and decided to tell me. I would never have known otherwise, but he confessed when I confronted him. He had an EA eight years ago and it took years to regain the trust. Devastated doesn't come close. Agony is a more accurate description. Despite his stupidity I never doubted that he loves me. But this has been the worst year of my life, and initially the paranoia that he was possibly hiding more than he had told me completely consumed me, as did thoughts of him having sex with her. We are trying to move past it to a place where one day we could be stronger and he has said and done everything possible to fix things, infact right now we feel very close because of all the talking and healing and effort that is being ploughed into our relationship - but I will never, never, never get over what he did. I feel utterly traumatised by it and will until I die, to me it has been more painful than bereavement. The best I can hope for is to focus on the future and not on the past. I don't doubt that right now I am his No1 priority and that he means everything he says - but it's the fear that one day he might start to take me for granted again, it's a slippery slope. And the thing is that if I'm honest I doubt I could ever fully trust any man after this anyway, so I choose to stay in this marriage because although my DH has been an absolute fool I know I have his love, and visa versa, and we have a dd, we are a family. What I can't accept is that, though DH has (rightly) suffered because of his actions (I haven't seen him cry like that since his mum died, thinking I was going to leave him) and he is terrified I will fall out of love with him because of what he did and is plagued with guilt and remorse, the OW has swanned smugly off having sucked my husband's dick and told anyone at work who would listen - and has apparently wrecked other marriages too. She is a fucking cunt and I have imagined all the things I would like to do if I ever met her irl, really awful things. That isn't me - but betrayal and trauma changes a part of you forever. A genuine broken heart is the absolute worst emotion in existence - beyond description. Those who haven't experienced it will never understand.

It is sad that many spouses reach the point of not giving a shit. It is sad that many spouses choose to stay despite hating the wayward spouse. It is sad spouses resign themselves to a miserable existence because of something they did not do.

I must say that most days I feel stronger than ever. In my eyes I have overcome one of the most traumatic circumstances in life. I do not concern myself over little things anymore, I care less about what others think. If I want to wear the pretty dress to work, I will do whereas before I would have felt conscious. I feel a great sense of empowerment. I walk with my head high because I am a warrior. Dh knows I can walk away anytime and appreciates that I CHOOSE to stay. I make more of a conscious effort to do activities and socials that are not linked with dh. There is absolutely no way he will be at the centre of all I do.

magicpaintbrush You speak with such pain and agony. You mention your dh is scared of losing you and scared you may fall out of love with him. This is a burden HE must carry as a consequence of HIS actions. It is not your responsibility to make him feel better about this. In fact this should serve to keep him on his toes and is not a bad thing at all. Ensure the ball stays in your court. If you choose to stay, continue to work with him, whether via counselling and sharing one on one. Let him go to sleep each night with both gratitude and fear that he could lose you. That any one day it is possible you could wake up and say you want out.

@Magicpaintbrush, part of the reason I stayed with my ex originally was that I truly believed he loved me and he broke down and wept etc.

He never wanted us to split and he was devastated when I ended things. He just never could manage fidelity. (He had a self-sabotaging thing going on generally tbh).

We're sold a lie that love is what matters. But it's not true. And it's not enough.

Because your man has form for cheating already, I would advise you to make an end of it.

I struggle to understand why some of you lead these half lives - living and even having sex with a man you don't have any love or regard for ? The rest of your life dictated by the past ?

I struggle understanding that too StuffedP

I stayed and my life is far better since the affair but I do love my DH and enjoy his company. But then I always have.

I’m sorry to those of you whose OW was very much in their lives and in their homes.
That’s despicable xxx

But I do enjoy his company and I do enjoy going off on our travels.
The difference is , my life now does not revolve around his schedule, he is either her or not and if it's the later then I go anyway.

I think if he had been horrible to me when he was seeing ow then I may be different,but as nothing had changed and acts of affection remained the same,so to me they mean nothing.
It's hard to explain and it probably sounds like I have some sort of half life,when it's actually the opposite and my life and free time are definitely better.
It's the core of the relationship that has changed.
I'm not the same.
He broke me and I am mended but I dont work the same anymore.
Once the glue dried, I became stronger!

I think if he had been horrible to me when he was seeing ow then I may be different,but as nothing had changed and acts of affection remained the same,so to me they mean nothing

Blimey!

I would throw him out. To me it's the biggest show or disrespect and ungratefulness and it's not something I could ever move on from. You sound like you're thinking of staying with him because you've been with him a long time, but I just can't see why I'd waste even more time with someone who thinks that little of me

Sunk cost fallacy I think with people goosey

How awful OP

I always think that if this happened to me, I would not play nice. I’d pretend to forgive, but meanwhile plot my escape, get my financial ducks in a row (so to speak), make plabs, and then just when he is lulled into a sense of security, I would take charge of the situation and execute my plan (this would include telling the kids, the family etc everything on my terms)

I would (I hope) take charge if the situation, and ultimately kick him out.

My SIL has forgiven her DH (my BIL)’s affairs, but I don’t think I could. MIL has forgiven PIL .... i guess it is a common thing to happen.

Guess i’d be too proud to stay, not sure if that is a good thing, or bad, but just how I’m wired.

How are you wired OP? What is your “dream” outcome? For him to grovel and for you to forgive? Or for you to kick him out and move on? Or revenge of sorts?

S021 I too find it lowest of the low that the ow was brought into the family home, whether they slept together there or not is irrelevant. Your home is your space and she had no right to be there. What are men thinking when they do this? Photographs, possessions and memories are all around the home and they see it fit to bring the ow in on this. I presume the ow would feel rather smug that she was in your space. This act would affect me far more than the sex.

chickeny Is your bil a serial cheater? How does his wife find out?

I have come to realise (I clearly am a bit slow) that you never really know what goes on behind closed doors. Many couples will take things to their grave whether infidelity, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, gambling.

I try to stop myself from seeing our friends marriages as almost perfect particularly when the husband fawns over his wife. Dh loves me and is affectionate but is not the type to boast on my behalf to others or put me on a pedestal. I have been known to feel a little envious of couples who kiss on the street, on the train as I assume the man adores the woman and cannot keep his hands off her. Stupid I know!

OW being in my home is awful. Apparently they would give each other lifts to MY house so they could spend the night together. He would sometimes drive her in her car because she doesn’t like driving in the city.
It’s like a raw open wound. I hate the fact she was there with the pictures of my children on the wall, sleeping in my nice sheets, using my bathroom. I don’t know how DH could do it. I hate him for it. I don’t know if the fact that she was a sort of friend makes it worse but it probably does.
DH now says he’ll sell the house and buy another if it will make me feel better but I don’t know if it will.