Affair recovery - what are your views?

[bella2345]

Hi all, I have been with my partner for 18 years. We have 2 children under 4. In our mid 30's.
9 months ago, I discovered my partner was having an affair. It went on for 9 months. As soon as I discovered the affair, it ended. My partner was beside himself after the discovery and begged and pleaded for my forgiveness. After 6 weeks apart, I decided that I wanted to give him a chance and we embarked on our recovery together. After the initial discovery, I was absolutely heartbroken and devastated. It came as a massive massive shock. Nothing like it had ever happened before and prior to it, we trusted each other 100%. For weeks, I barely ate or slept. I honestly didn't know at the time how I was ever going to get better. I had also lost a parent only a few months before the discovery and I honestly felt broken. The other woman was 10 years younger than my partner; she contacted me after the discovery several times telling me she was going to harm herself and sending lots of texts etc exchanged between her and my partner. It was awful. I basically coached her and tried to help her. Despite my own struggles at the time, I actually felt sorry for her in a really strange way.
Anyway, the point of my post is this...
I am now in a place that I never thought I would be in. And I'm not sure why. But I feel really strong and in a strange way empowered by the whole experience. I am proud of myself for staying strong and overcoming what life has thrown at me over the last year or so. I feel more confident and sexier than I have in a long time. I'm looking after myself and my appearance, doing things for myself and feel like I have a new lease of life. Strangely, despite the ongoing struggle of overcoming an affair together as a couple, and the difficulties that doing this brings at times, I feel that for the first time in a long time, I am getting what I want from the relationship. The communication between us is better than ever; we talk, we laugh. We are affectionate towards one another, our sex life is like it was when we first met all of those years ago. My sex drive is through the roof. We spend quality time together, on our own and I feel that me and the children are his priority. I just feel that he knows he made a huge mistake and that he risked throwing everything away for something that gave him a massive ego boost. It has made my partner reevaluate his whole life; his flaws and how selfishly he has behaved. And we are working on our issues together as a couple. I suppose I am looking for people's views on how I feel? Is this normal? Because I have done lots of research and all I read is how low in confidence I should feel? And how my self esteem should be rock bottom? But it isn't? In a way I pity my partner for doing what he did. Thoughts? Thanks everyone

I'm glad you're happy, I am very glad your self esteem is good, i'm glad your confidence and strength are improved. I think every relationship is unique, every affair is unique. I'm not going to comment on that.

What I am going to say is, you tried to help the other woman through her distress. I know this seems selfless and commendable. I'm personally wondering where your self-care, boundaries and good sense disappeared to. You should not have allowed yourself to get in this position. You were heart broken and had two children under four. Your priority should have been firmly focused on yourself. I think you should go to counselling for yourself because you sound like a rescuer, and that can be exhausting. Good luck.

@beavisandbutthead

Well how wonderful, you caught your DH out for cheating on you. He had a relationship for over 9mths. You have two DC under 4 and been together 18yrs. Your feeling all empowered because the cheat was caught and is grovelling and doing all the right things, your hysterical bonding so now feel everything is wonderful.

So you took the cheat back, just remind your self he had another relationship for 9mths that only stopped because you caught him.

Lets see how long this lasts until he does it again.

Sorry I am very much zero tolerance for cheats, growing up in a houshold where my dad had many affairs before leaving my mum. I have zero interest in staying with a man who would betray me that way and certainly dont want to be living with anxiety and mistrust with the fear he might do it again.

Ok, thank you for this extremely unhelpful and negative comment!

@beavisandbutthead

Well how wonderful, you caught your DH out for cheating on you. He had a relationship for over 9mths. You have two DC under 4 and been together 18yrs. Your feeling all empowered because the cheat was caught and is grovelling and doing all the right things, your hysterical bonding so now feel everything is wonderful.

So you took the cheat back, just remind your self he had another relationship for 9mths that only stopped because you caught him.

Lets see how long this lasts until he does it again.

Sorry I am very much zero tolerance for cheats, growing up in a houshold where my dad had many affairs before leaving my mum. I have zero interest in staying with a man who would betray me that way and certainly dont want to be living with anxiety and mistrust with the fear he might do it again.

And also, just for the record. I'm not living with anxiety and mistrust.

@Justcause233

I'm glad you're happy, I am very glad your self esteem is good, i'm glad your confidence and strength are improved. I think every relationship is unique, every affair is unique. I'm not going to comment on that.

What I am going to say is, you tried to help the other woman through her distress. I know this seems selfless and commendable. I'm personally wondering where your self-care, boundaries and good sense disappeared to. You should not have allowed yourself to get in this position. You were heart broken and had two children under four. Your priority should have been firmly focused on yourself. I think you should go to counselling for yourself because you sound like a rescuer, and that can be exhausting. Good luck.

She is clearly unstable (you'd have to be to enter into an affair with somebody who you know is in a long term relationship with young children) and was threatening to harm herself. Whilst it definitely was not my duty, I have compassion for other human beings. Maybe I do have a 'rescuer' personality. I am driven to help other people. It's just the way I am. I could have gone absolutely apeshit, behaved like a psychopath etc etc but what would that have achieved?

[quote NotMansplaining]@Bella2345, I have been married to my DW for 29 years and we've been together for almost 37.
When I met her she was married and living separately in the same house as her then husband, different bedrooms etc. I was 7 and a bit years younger than her and I should have known better but I was drawn to her like a mother to a flame.
We got together and eventually married we added a child to our family and I have 3 sons I'm very proud of. The year after we married she started an affair which lasted over two years. At one point I moved out into a flat only for her to ask me to come back home then one day I came home to find she and the children were gone. She had moved in with the other man. To cut a very long story short after a few days she turned up at the door. She begged me for forgiveness and she wanted to come back home. Turned out Mr Wondeful wasn't great with kids.
I took her back, after all I still loved her.
Our relationships was very damaged and I even sent her to the STD clinic to get tested.
It took months of talking and honesty to get us back in the same bed and for me to start to rebuild trust.
She has been a good and faithful wife to me but when we argue, which is rare thank God, the past still gets brought to the surface.
What I will say is you can forgive but you will never forget. I am happy and I am glad I took her back but if things had been different and she wasn't honest with me then who knows.[/quote]
I'm sorry to hear you went through this. It sounds awful. I hope you stay happy!!

@MuseumOfYou

What I will say is you can forgive but you will never forget

I think this is true, we are seven years down the line. Again I am much more confident because I know I could do it on my own, and I would. But things are pretty good and I have no regrets.

What were your circumstances if you don't mind me asking?

I didn't suggest you go apeshit, I didn't suggest you do anything negative. Being compassionate is one thing, in my opinion what you did wasn't particularly healthy. For you. It just wasn't. I very much doubt that girl had no one else to go to for support, than her lover's wife ? Her lover....., who put her in this position in the first place? It is dysfunctional. But you seem to reap some kind of satisfaction from it so I won't comment again.

Did you ask him what would happened if you hadn’t caught him?

It sounds like you’re euphoric because you think you’ve won. You got one over on the OW by proving yourself stronger than her and putting your shock and pain aside to help and comfort her. You got one over on your husband because he was sorry he’d been rumbled and you forgave him.

You’re only after positive comments and people are being kind and complimenting your grace. I wouldn’t do what you did, it sounds humiliating. But if you’re happy and think he’s worth it, if you think the power balance is in your favour now and that works for you, if it’s the best thing for your children etc then it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. You can always leave in the future at any time for any reason if you want to.

Did you have marriage counselling? I must agree with a pp, you shouldn't have engaged with the OW...and should have blocked her.

Some of these OW can become very unstable and dangerous when they get dumped after dday. Especially with you having young kids.

Did she know he was married?

bella2345
You’re not the only one.
I feel the same and life is great for me

If you take anyone back after an affair that's an immediate "oh I can get away with this - I'll do it again"

A leopard never changes their spots - don't be fooled

Hope4theBestPlan4theWorst

It’s really not like that at all and that’s an incredibly simplistic way of looking at it.

Do you know what OP, you do you! If you feel good about yourself & empowered then don't question it. Your husband has been an absolute arse & I bloody hate cheaters. I've been cheated on before & ive also gone back to them, because no matter what if you love someone you always will end up going back. You can't just switch your feelings off - even if it's not the right thing to do (in my case it absolutely wasn't) in a weird way this has also maybe made him realise that you're the one he wants and your relationship is getting back on track again. I think it's very important though that now you've taken him back you can't bring it up all the time as hard as that can be. That's what I did & it it came up in every single argument - it was horrendous. Try & move on from it & just enjoy feeling fab about yourself x

So he cheated on you when you had a toddler and a baby and a dying parent. What a prize.

Well done for rebuilding your marriage to this person .

I wonder if this post is a bit fake it till you make it. Not that it's a bad thing if that's the case.

It typically takes around 3 to 5 years to recover from infidelity. I think I would be a little bit worried if you were my friend, being supportive to the ow is really dysfunctional.

She is clearly unstable (you'd have to be to enter into an affair with somebody who you know is in a long term relationship with young children) and was threatening to harm herself. Whilst it definitely was not my duty, I have compassion for other human beings. Maybe I do have a 'rescuer' personality. I am driven to help other people. It's just the way I am. I could have gone absolutely apeshit, behaved like a psychopath etc etc but what would that have achieved?

OP, this is so sad to read. He has got you to a place where you are blaming the other woman's "weakeness" for what he did. HE was the one that batrayed you. HE was the one that lied to you. You deserve better than this, even if you do not realise it now.

It's possible to extract yourself from such situations without going "apeshit" or behaving like a psychopath. But still be free and know you won't be put in this situation again, or worse in way, live in constant fear and anxiety at the possibility.

I hope it works out for you, I really do. But based on what you've said I worry you may well find yourself right back where you started in a few years' time.

It is so mich better to be free and independent that live like that, with the anxiety of him doing this again. How can you ever trust him now? The short-term rush of emotion will be relaced with anxiety and insecurity and a very unhappy life, O fear.

Op. You caught your husband cheating and the affair ended. If you had not caught him out he would still be doing it.

So you tried to help the other woman Why would anyone who has been betrayed do that ?
Do you want brownie points for being the better person ?

Why have you invested so much of yourself in this mess when you should have valued yourself more ?

I’m very concerned that the ow is being described as vulnerable and unstable by you and yet you’re not putting together the fact that your dh had an affair with her.
Does that make your dh predatory?

If the other woman was unstable because she chose to have an affair, why aren’t you casting the same aspersions at your husband? It’s amazing and convenient how often the OW is classed as unstable.

It’s great you feel powerful and confident but in all honesty it sounds as though it’s because you feel you’ve won.

Yet he doesn’t sound much of a prize.

Sorry, I've not read the full thread and my concern would not be for the OW. That is for her to work out with her friends and family. If you get sucked in then you may never be rid of her.

Anyway a similar thing happened to a good friend over 10 years ago.

They were late 30s, had been together since uni and had two DC. They were the last couple you would have expected this to happen to. It was a classic mid life crisis... lost job, losing hair, poor relationship with own parents and self esteem issues.

They both had counselling individually and as a couple. Then they decided to work on staying together. My friend was adamant that he needed to stay because he wanted to stay with her, not just for the DC.

Ten plus years later and all is good. They are soul mates really and that was a blip. The counselling helped them each deal with personal issues that had been bubbling over the years so now they're at the other side they're not afraid to discuss.

So yes, you can move on from an affair and have a great relationship again if you both really want to.

I would get individual and joint counselling. This high you are on, is going to come crashing down, when life settles down. Remember, he cheated on you when he got bored. That is his response. What happens when he inevitably gets bored again? You would need to see real change in him, to shore up your marriage. Being on the other side of this, the lack of trust and respect is hard to move forward with.

Hi OP

I have been in a similar situation. Although I didn't go as far as counselling the OW but I did actually pity her. At one point I even felt sorry for her, she was from another country, vulnerable etc etc. I have the same type of nature as you I think.

Then as time went on, we had a similar experience, that the marriage was boosted and things seemed to be how they used to be. I (thought) I was happier, but I now see that I brushed so much under the carpet, and instead of helping myself, I had put the energy into making sure everyone else was ok. It easier to do that.

What I realised it that I too am a 'fixer', of course it was now my job to fix everything that went wrong. And I did. For quite a few years. In my mind he had cheated on me because of what I had or had not done, so I tried to fix myself so that these things were not an issue again. I had to fix him, because after all, that is what I do. If he had a problem, then it would be for me to sort it out, get to the route of the problem etc etc. Yes, this boosted my confidence, as I had sorted everything out, as I thought it should be. I felt good. In fact I felt amazing. My life was back to how it should have been.

Until the next time he cheated. And the next time after that. OP, I just couldn't anymore. I couldn't fix it, I couldn't fix him, I crashed and realised then that really, nothing had changed. I now had to deal with the reality of the situation, which I should have done 6 years before that. I was a doormat, and he had gotten away with it once before, and so he went and did it again when everything wasn't perfect and rosy anymor when I had hit a bump and wasn't making everything perfect for him.

So, what I am saying is that yes, maybe he does have true remorse and you may be able to move on from this, but what you need to do, is look out for you. Just be sure that you have dealt with YOUR issues about this, and are not just using your new found confidence as a cover.

BUT, what I shoved under the carpet is that I just didn't trust him anymore. I pretended it didn't bother me, but now I see that it was a huge problem.

So, just a little advice from someone who has been through similar, what you do going forward is up to you, but just be sure that you are in the right place to make that decision.

All the best to you Bella.

How did you " coach" the OW? Did you say your DH was to blame? It's a strange thing to do.

Hi OP,

Very similar situation here, OW threatening suicide etc if husband stayed with me. We made a deal that he would tell me everything she tried to contact him and we oddly really bonded over it. She changed her phone number, DH would unknowingly answer, but then pass the phone to me 😂 stopped her contacting him pretty quick.

I also received loads of messages on social media, loads of hysterical stories to try split us up (they went on holidays together, day trips etc that I could prove were wrong. E.g. She sent me a DM on Instagram to say they had spent the night together and she was on a date with him...when my husband and I were actually visiting his parents for a couple days). We laughed about it!

Did spend a couple of weeks apart and I realised I could leave him if I wanted to and I would do great, I can support myself, I have my own life/hobbies/friends. I think that's where the confidence comes from, I know I can be happy without him or I can be happy with him. I also know if it ever happens again I can LTB.

I was also flattered by how obsessed this OW seemed to be with me 🤣

Definitely a huge confidence boost, like you I feel so much sexier and in control.

Well done OP!