Life after affair (staying together)

[Silverbirch78]

Hi all, first time post but been lurking a while. So in August I found out that my husband of 15 years had been having an affair. He met OW online in June , they met a couple of times over a coffee then met for lunch at a hotel. He went to her room, began to kiss her but freaked out and left. It took a while for the whole truth to come out. I’m at a point where I believe I now know everything. I have decided I want to work through this, believe it or not he is an amazing man and I love him dearly. My question is for those who have been through the same how was life for you in the months after you found out? Do you ever trust again? I know that it will take a long time to deal with this, but I want to stay in this relationship. thanks in advance x

Sounds like he shagged her but he'll never admit that to you.

Good luck for the future.
I'd bin him, if it was me.

Where does it say he met her on a dating' site ?
On line could mean any type of social media , gaming or even a forum like this .,,,,,

I was on the other side

I had an affair about 9yrs, we tried to patch things up, but the reasons for me straying were still there and (without going into details) we split last year after 29yrs.

We should never have stayed together, the problems were never going to fix themselves and I feel we wasted further time.

I also minimised the affair, and told him as little as I thought I could get away with. I'm not proud of myself, but wasn't happy and stayed for the children.

They have said they knew we were unhappy and wished we had split at the time....hindsight is a wonderful thing.

9yrs ago*

I had cheated on my DP in the very early stages of our relationship and it destroyed him when he found out. I felt awful and hated how much I had hurt him, but I told him everything rather than dragging it out and making it even worst for him. I couldn't believe what I had done to him and wanted to do what I could to have him trust me again. I knew it would take a long time and I'd be lucky if he did.

4 years on were now engaged and he trusts me, we have a very open relationship in terms of communication and we are doing really well and we're much stronger. The thought of cheating on my DP makes me angry at myself and I would never do it. Some people can come back from it but you really need to get down to the root as to why the cheating occurred and deal with it, the person needs to be willing to be completely open and honest about everything and it will get better.

Hi Silverbirch,

I too have a WS. He had a LTA with a COW spanning over 2 1/2 years until caught. We have three kids and have been together 20 years. Sometimes it is not easy to just walk away. We are just over 2 years post DDay. It is hard but keeps evolving. I have found the website surviving infidelity a great resource for me as it is used by people who have a shared experience. I would suggest you just take it one day at a time, if it’s not right for you, you will know in time. I suspect he has done more than kiss I’m afraid, but you will know if/when you need more from him. The greatest bit of advice I can offer is to take want you want from these sites and ignore the rest. It’s your life, live it authentically for yourself and you will have no regrets.

Hugs and best wishes

OP, the truth of the matter is that he didn't tell you about the affair - you found out. He didn't then tell you the whole truth immediately - he drip-fed you. He still is - but it will taker you many more months to find that out.

Both of those facts show a lack of remorse for what he has done, and a lack of any genuine respect for you. He just wants you to accept what he says and forget about this ASAP, so he can resume his easy life with you at home looking after his day-today needs.

Until his ego needs another boost.

Think really carefully before you decide this is the life you want.

Did you ever speak with the OW? Get her side of the story, would she tell you if they slept together?

Been there, done that.

Cheaters will admit to only 2 things:

• what they believe they can get away with;
• what you already know to be the truth.

Bear in mind he went out looking for someone to shag. OLD - not just a drunken ONS after an office party. (Not that I would excuse the latter...)

Get your head around this: he specifically set out to cheat on you and used the simplest, most efficient means of finding a woman who would spread her legs for him. I know this sounds crude, but this is the honest truth.

Believe me, your relationship with him will NEVER be the same again. The trust is gone. And he'll only get better at hiding his extracurricular activities.

I wish I had run for the hills. I have now - but it took me more than 5 years to do so. I am so angry with myself when I think of all the things I could have done during those years...

Don't be me!

Tell him he can stay IF he's ok with you setting up an Online dating profile, arranging to meet a few of the responders, snogging them and spending the night in a hotel with at least one of them (with no questions ever asked of you as to what you got up to).

Bear in mind various of your friends and family may well have seen his online dating profile, as they may well do with yours.

You'll be killing 2 birds with one stone.

You get to stay in the relationship (which you clearly want to do) whilst testing you other options out (as he did) with zero risk to your current relationship; he can't complain about you doing what he did can he? (Though I highly doubt he will be ok with it).

Who knows, you may find someone better suited to you than the cheater you're currently with, if not you may feel more comfortable with your decision to stay, knowing there wasn't anyone else out there you wanted anyway.

It will probably fuck up your marriage, but let's be honest, it's already fucked so you've got nothing to lose.

@hooferdoofer37... wow thanks for that... helpful

I get my post was quite cutting, but I'm trying to make you see:

1. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to make a profile on a dating site because you love your husband (he doesn't feel the same about you).

1. I'm certain you wouldn't want your family/friends seeing you on a dating site (your H wasn't bothered)

1. I'm certain that your H wouldn't want you to date other guys (again, he didn't consider that you would be unhappy with him dating other women)

1. What would have happened had the date he'd gone on been brilliant? Do you think they would have had sex? (They probably did, that kiss & run off story sounds like bullshit).

Do you think he would have left you for her (possible). Maybe they screwed and she wasn't very good, so he came back to you. Maybe they screwed and HE wasn't very good, the OW said she didn't want to see him again, so he came back to you.

1. You are going to be wondering about the above points for the rest of your relationship with him; is that really how you want to live your life?

Hi Silverbirch78.
Right…where to begin? I’m in a similar-ish situation to you as in I’ve decided to stay and try to give my marriage another shot following an affair.

Short back-story, (mum to 4, married for 18 years), I discovered messages on H’s phone, confronted him, he confessed details – six month EA which turned into a PA.
He was very remorseful and begged for another chance. We discussed things and as I knew our marriage hadn’t been all that great for a while I decided to give it another go.

Fast-forward to now - we are together giving it another go but it is really, really hard. Both of us are finding it difficult as I have periods where I don’t trust him (and given the circumstances it’s not surprising). He is making a big effort to redeem himself but sometimes I worry that it won’t be enough for me.

He hasn’t done anything since (to my knowledge!), I have access to everything whenever I want. I also know that she has sent messages to him (which I have read). Basically I think that she, (also married with children), wants to continue their relationship, which he has assured me is the last thing that he wants to do whether we stay together or not.

The way I see it is that I’m taking each day one at a time. We have bad days but we also have good days. We can both see huge improvements in our relationship/marriage but it does make me sad that H thought that the answer to our problems was to have an affair. Obviously it’s too late to cry over spilt milk but I do have down days when this does upset me. At this point, 4/5 months afterwards, the good days tend to out-weigh the bad days.

One of the posters on my original thread posted some advice which I have been following from day 1 – basically that I don’t need to make any decisions at this point in time regarding our relationship. I’m taking one day at a time and seeing how things go. If I decide in a few weeks/a few months or later that I genuinely can’t continue in the relationship then I can still decide to end it then. Ultimately it’s going to be up to me what I decide to do with my life.

If I end up making a mistake by giving him another chance (as many posters seem to think ‘once a cheater always a cheater’), I’ll know that I’ll have done everything within my power to make things work and will have to accept that I’ve chosen to forgive someone who doesn’t deserve forgiveness.

I know that not all advice is going to work for everyone and ultimately everyone’s circumstances are different but I do hope that you find whatever you’re looking for on this thread.
Thinking of you and wishing you all the best

P.S Sorry my post was supposed to be short and to the point but it turned into a bit of an essay!

@MakeMineALargeDouble thank you for taking the time to reply, that’s really insightful.. I want to give this a shot, I hope things work well for you too x

@MakeMineALargeDouble why hasn't he blocked her?
Or would you rather know that she's making contact and he's ignoring it?

He has blocked her, no contact at all since August x

Sorry just seen this was for @MakeMineALarge

I stayed and 2 years on we are in a better place. I don't trust him 100% but speaking to friends and reading forums like this I feel it's better to accept that humans are complex creatures that can make bad decisions and fuck up and hurt others and not to put all your trust into one person. We had issues before he cheated and it all came out and gave us the opportunity to work on our issues. We went right back to basics, set ground rules that we won't hold feelings in and we be open with each other, we almost went back to dating and then grew back as partners. I'm quite independent and would be comfortable on my own financially and mentally so I surprised myself when I decided to stay and make it work, I had always been in the LTB camp. Esther Perel YouTube videos and books are excellent especially this one.

I'm not sure you can ever recover, my ex had an affair when I was pregnant with our second child, that is 14 years ago and I still think about it, even although we are now not together

@GiveHerHellFromUs
Basically it was a personal choice for me.
As far as I'm concerned he doesn't need to block her in order to cut contact but he knows that if he engages with her in anyway then our marriage is over.
Everytime he chooses not to reply and shows me the message, I see it as him putting me first and investing in our future. (I haven't told him this though!)
I also (quite nastily) like the fact that by ignoring her I'm hoping that it's having a negative effect on her.

Honestly, I'd go for counselling by yourself, and really work on your self esteem.

Amazing men don't meet OW in hotel rooms.

@makeminealargedouble

How haven’t you told her husband? I think that would be too tempting for me not to do!

All I will say is OP, if you love him and feel like you can move past it then give it a shot, people make mistakes that doesn’t make them a bad person.

Also I think this happens In a lot of relationships but people just don’t find out/don’t tell anyone.

He’s minimising OP. Someone who is brazen enough to set up online dating, talk, meet and go back to a hotel room does not freak out and bottle it after a kiss.
You will find out more one day

@ Silverbirch781

I have been on yet another side of your equation. Been on similar websites where he found his AP. Have met a few men off those websites - and his story makes no sense. Or rather it’s typical and makes sense.
All men I met up with for coffees off such websites were ready to go to the next stage after the first coffee. And no one ‘freaks out‘ in hotel rooms - as to get to that point requires pre-planning and a decision to go online in the first place.
As to the details, duration of affair, being remorseful and offering to go to counselling, and everything else he is doing - this can be genuine or not. You won’t know until much later.
The man I ended up seeing off a similar website was discovered and said/did exactly the things your H is saying. His W believed him because she wanted to - just like you do now. Except in our case we never stopped seeing each other.

None of the above means that your marriage can’t survive this. Many (most) marriages survive affairs. Whether you’ll merely survive or change and rebuild the relationship is up to you both.
Estel Perel’s book is a great resource. It can help you both figure out how to move from a place of mostly blaming the cheater - to a place where you really examine your relationship and what lead to the affair. And help you figure out how the relationship needs to change so that it doesn’t happen again.