Will I ever stop feeling like this?

[willthiseverstop]

During 2020 my husband had an affair with a colleague. He decided to end it after she gave him an ultimatum and we decided to try again. Sadly it hasn’t worked out and he will soon be moving out of our family home. I 99% believe they are not currently in contact (except for work), but he hasn’t ruled out restarting their relationship once we’ve separated.

However, my issue is that whilst I chose to forgive the affair, I have an incredibly strong reaction to any mention of her name or anything that reminds me of her and it’s getting worse. I end up shaking and in tears. I can’t bear the fact that this woman may be a part of my life in future, that I might be forced to be around her for the sake of my children.

Will this ever stop or get better? How do I cope if they end up together?

I’m in a similar boat. Trying again after funding out about the OW for the second time.

I can’t escape reminders of the affair or the OW. My anxiety spikes with heart palpitations and flashbacks.

Sorry I can’t help but I can say you’re not alone

best I got is one day at a time, and hope for the best.

@heartlex it does help to know I’m not alone. The feeling you describe is exactly what happens to me too. I’m so sorry you feel this way too.

I wonder if it is worse because you forgave him? The first time he abused your trust, it was bad enough, but when you'd given him the benefit of the doubt a second time and he didn't even respect that, but kept her on on hold (at the very least), it was an even worse breach of trust.

I wasn't as focused on the OW personally as I read my exh's emails to her and knew he had been lying to her, too. You are probably imagining him being nicer to her, but I wouldn't bet on it. If she does get together with him, she will get his bad side too. Don't know if it would help to think about the things you didn't like about him, and remember that someone else now has to put up with it?

I did get flashbacks for ages too, but yes, it does go away. In my case, lots of activities helped, as well as medication at the beginning. But basically, time does help.

You don't have too be around her if you don't want to. You could refuse to be in the same room as her and no-one would think it weird.

@ravenmum I think the problem I have is that I can’t figure out why I have such a problem with her. If I could, I could rationalise it and maybe start to move on.

Therapy was also helpful, if you haven't already signed up. Somehow or another, someone else listening and asking questions does help work things out.

It might get easier now you have split. If you were wanting to try again it was easier to blame her not him - consciously or unconsciously- making her the bad guy hence you have such a problem with her. Now you have split you can deal with whole scenario for what it is and process your feelings.

That's a good point @Dixiechickonhols -- in my case I almost saw the OW as a fellow victim; my exh was definitely the "baddie".

When you've made the hugely stressful decision to try again, swallowing your anger, I guess you would really have to convince yourself that your partner is worth the fight? You'd be deliberately avoiding any focus on his crappy behaviour?

@willthiseverstop my exp had an affair with a work colleague also, still to this day I hate the mention of her name. I hate seeing her if I drive past her etc even although they aren't together, it still makes me annoyed. They say time is a healer and hopefully once yous separate you won't be like me and still have these feelings as there is nothing worse. Just remember your worth and nobody should make you feel worthless or uncomfortable.

I think it’s partly because when he’s not around her he’s a great person and he changed with her, so I don’t like the person he is when she’s around. I want to believe he’s a good person and by choosing her I feel like he isn’t, he’s not the man I thought and it makes me sad that I have so much of my life to him.

It’s also partly down to her. At first I saw her as a victim and didn’t blame her at all. I even messaged her after the ultimatum to check she was OK. But now I reflect back, how she treated me was awful and I can never forgive her for it or trust anything she says to me.

I also don’t trust her to put my children first. She’ll be great with them. So much fun. But I think she’d break their hearts in a heartbeat if it suited her.

@Youaremysunshine09 I’m sorry to hear you’ve been through the same thing. How long ago was it for you?

I obviously can’t say for sure, but have you been assessed for PTSD?

The stuff you said about shaking and being in tears at the mention of her name really stood out to me.

Some info here. If you think it might be relevant to you you can self refer to your local NHS IAPT service for trauma therapy for free. They’d start with an assessment to see whether or not the affair has led to you developing mental health problems or having undergone trauma.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/rediscovering-love/201709/how-infidelity-causes-post-traumatic-stress-disorder%3famp

@ChameleonKola I do have a counsellor, but for some reason I always avoid talking about her as I feel like I don’t want it to be an issue, that I hate that I’ve allowed her to have this impact on me when my feelings meant nothing to her. I always feel like I’m going to be told it’s not about her, it’s him I should be angry with, but I think it’s that seeing or hearing her name reminds me of all the reasons I should be angry with him and I don’t want to process them because when I try they’re really bad. How someone I thought loved me could treat me like he did and how I stupidly let him do it. I was so unbelievably gullible.

@willthiseverstop thank you. It was around 4 years ago now.

It's not gullibility, OP, it's trust. You were trusting enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. That's not stupid, it is because you are a decent person who doesn't expect the worst of others.

Counsellors shouldn't be telling you what you can be angry about and not. You have to look at your feelings to process them, even (especially) the apparently irrational ones.

I can’t believe how helpful I’m finding this thread.

I think I may have actually figured out my problem.

I don’t want her around my children. I know that she’ll on the surface be great with them, really fun, but she’s consistently shown that she has no regard for other people’s feelings and will break their hearts as long as she’s getting what she wants. I also believe they’ll have a child together if they do end up together and I worry that my children will be pushed aside for the shiny new baby.

My main priority in life is my children and protecting them as best I can. I feel anxious as I cannot protect them from her. It makes me feel helpless.

I feel similar about the OW. If she became the step mother I would struggle.

When you say she’d break their hearts? In what way do you imagine that happening?

You'll be able to manage it to a certain extent, though, OP. You'll be able to talk to them about their feelings, comfort them and persuade them that their dad really does love them but is just very busy with a new baby (should it really ever get that far).

My exh's OW thought he was up for a third child; that was the main lie he told her. They did not have a child. She cheated on him. He's now single again. Things may not turn out quite as expected for your dh.

Do you think she wants to be around your children? How do you think she could break their hearts? They are more likely to see her as dad's girlfriend but otherwise pretty irrelevant...

I mean that if she decides after a while she doesn’t want the relationship she’ll drop them like a stone for someone else. On the surface she’s a lovely person and they think she’s great. She’s very good with them. I’m sure they’ll adore having her as a step mum and then be devastated if she walked away. Maybe she wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t put it past her given how she’s behaved in the past.

Writing it sounds ridiculous, as I should want them to be with someone who’s good with them, I just don’t trust her.

whilst I chose to forgive the affair

What does this mean to you? What does it look like? What does forgiving mean to you?

How does it interact with this?

I can never forgive her for it

I don't quite understand how you're reconciling these two positions internally. By "forgive" , do you just mean letting go of your anger or something else? Never speaking of it again?

will break their hearts as long as she’s getting what she wants. I also believe they’ll have a child together if they do end up together and I worry that my children will be pushed aside for the shiny new baby.

I would have thought that this applies equally to your husband. If he chose to do that to his children, he would be responsible for that and he would deserve your anger.

By deliberately forgiving him and deliberately not forgiving her, you just seem to have transferred all your anger, hurt, and fears onto her shoulders - transforming her into a monster threatening your life.

Which made sense as a protective coping mechanism when you were trying to stay with your husband and needed him to be someone you could unite with and trust again, but now that you're separating it doesn't seem so helpful for her to have been built up into this ogre who threatens everything in your life. Instead of helping you cope it seems to be pulling you apart and preventing you from processing your feelings.

Does part of you feel like it would be a breach of your earlier forgiveness to discuss how this is affecting you?

It's entirely your choice who you forgive, when, and for what. Just be careful that the notion of forgiveness doesn't become something that stops you healing /coping - either because you're holding onto anger or because you feel by forgiving you're now not allowed to have or discuss your emotions and fears.

@user113424742258631134

I chose to forgive him when I thought he thought he’d made a mistake and wanted to try again. I think I may retract that forgiveness if the end up together because then it won’t have been a mistake it would have been him doing exactly what he wanted while stinging me along for his own benefit.

I’m struggling to forgive her and not him because him and I have lots of good memories together that are still worth something. My only interaction with her is her pretending to be my friend while sleeping with my husband behind my back. There was no reason for her to have anything to do with me and she chose to do that.

You’re right, I should be more angry with him, I don’t think I’m ready to process all of that yet. Being angry with her is so much easier. What he did was bigger and worse and I don’t know how to deal with the fact someone chose to do that to me and my children.

I think as well that I don’t trust him to put them first when he’s with her as past experience would say that all of his judgement goes out of the window when she’s around.

I was also asking how you're reconciling those two opposing stances on forgiveness because it seems like something that might create quite a lot of internal conflict for you.

I don't expect you to post answers to any of these questions. Like pp I'm just reflecting back to you from another perspective in the hope that it might help you with making sense of what's going on for you.

It's not an instant fix, but I usually find that understanding why we are feeling or reacting how we are can bring some peace ("yay I'm not crazy!") and make it much easier to figure out what to do next or simply how to ride it out.

It doesn't sound ridiculous that you don't trust her. Our brain learns rapidly that xyz is a threat to our life/safety and takes a long time to unlearn that when things change. It's very risk averse!

So it makes sense you feel distrustful of someone who's caused so much pain in your life, even if those feelings are being applied to a different situation. I suppose there is a question of whether/how much your fears and expectations are coming from your feelings about her rather than representing a true threat iyswim.

But it's still not ridiculous that you don't feel able to trust her right now. You don't want your children to feel the pain you have.

@willthiseverstop, you can’t work out why you have a problem with the woman that asked your husband to leave you and your children to be with her? And ultimately led to the breakdown of your marriage and family?
And now may even end up with him? That’s why you have a problem with her. Anyone would x

[quote willthiseverstop]@user113424742258631134

I chose to forgive him when I thought he thought he’d made a mistake and wanted to try again. I think I may retract that forgiveness if the end up together because then it won’t have been a mistake it would have been him doing exactly what he wanted while stinging me along for his own benefit.

I’m struggling to forgive her and not him because him and I have lots of good memories together that are still worth something. My only interaction with her is her pretending to be my friend while sleeping with my husband behind my back. There was no reason for her to have anything to do with me and she chose to do that.

You’re right, I should be more angry with him, I don’t think I’m ready to process all of that yet. Being angry with her is so much easier. What he did was bigger and worse and I don’t know how to deal with the fact someone chose to do that to me and my children.[/quote]
I think that's absolutely understandable and fair enough.

Maybe for now it's just something you keep in mind as you process your feelings and to help you with keeping things in perspective?

In terms of how overwhelming it might be to face the anger towards him, perhaps that is something you could turn to face a little in short doses as and when you feel able, and then turn away again. That might allow you to start processing it in a more manageable way and stop you from turning into a pressure cooker of rage that ends up exploding (or ever trying to take on such a lot of anger and hurt all in one go).

But take things at a pace you can cope with.

Do you have things you do when you're struggling or to release the anger? Some people journal, or bash pillows, or shred paper, or have a box of comforting objects/distractions.

Do you have anything like that you can turn to while you're going through this?