Making sense of serious betrayal

[glassbox]

Hello. This isn't about forgiving or anything, but just understanding infidelity so I can make sense of how I am feeling.

My DP was unfaithful to me a few years ago. We worked through it, but the only reason I agreed to that was because he gave me an edited version of the truth at the time. Partly to cover his backside, but I think probably also because he didn't know why he had done it or what it means until quite a long time later.

At the time, we had been seeing each other for nearly a year and it was just dating without the serious level of commitment. He said almost losing me made him realise how much he loved me, and he has stood by that for the last couple of years and has proved it's true. Since we worked it out, he is completely committed and has been the model DP in every way and we have been very happy.

He also took responsibility for the whole thing, learned about why he did it and improved himself and I think he grew from it and turned a huge corner in who he is as it's obvious when we met he had some baggage that led to this. It was obvious he felt very badly about it and for a long while he was depressed and going through very hard things so I know how seriously he took it. I admire than he did that.

That's all good, and our relationship is happy and so on, but as he went through therapy and so on, part of that was confessing the full truth and the various motivations to me at the time.

The real version was very painful and included really calculated, deceptive behavior that was all about him and his weakness and I can't get out of my head the fact that he was so cavalier about hurting me or risking losing me the way he did.

For those who have had affairs or who are going through the longer term outcomes of these things, what are thoughts on serious betrayal and how it affects things long term?

@NoNobramma I believe he would never make the same choices again. I believe he could not bear to lose me, and I have seen him show with consistent actions over a very long period of time that I am the most valuable thing in his life.

So you are saying as those things are true now, I need to find it in myself to let go of the past and accept he has changed and whatever happened before no longer needs to be important?

I think I came to that, which is why I stayed, even after the full details came out over time. The problem, inside me, is that for some reason I feel less valuable as a human being because he did this. I am not sure why this is, but it affected me and made me feel differently about myself.

That is the part, to me, that makes the betrayal so bad because over several months of knowing this woman and confiding in her about work he never once thought to mention he had a girlfriend!
Would it have been better if she knew he had a gf and they were both colluding in the affair?
To me, the fact that he hadn't mentioned a gf would suggest that a) he didn't know this woman that well previously, b) he wasn't 100% sure about how long he'd be with you (fair enough at less than a year tbh), or c) he always had his eye on her as a potential affair so kept quiet about it. How do you see it?

I asked if you felt he was laughing at you behind your back or getting off on risking you finding out as that's what my exh of 20+ years did - inviting his OW round to tea at our house as he found it exciting that I and our children didn't know who she was. That's a deliberate, calculated betrayal to me. Your dp's affair sounds more like him getting drunk and doing something stupid, thinking with his dick rather than actively attempting to hurt you?

as those things are true now, I need to find it in myself to let go of the past and accept he has changed and whatever happened before no longer needs to be important?
No. If you are unhappy, you're unhappy.

Honestly, if he has worked to put this behind him and you both recognise he was a different person then, then you are in a stronger position. If he understands why he got so deceptive (and it sounds like self-deceptive) to protect his selfishness and whether he has a pattern of sabotaging good things and he recognises the side of himself that comes to the fore in miserable situations - all that is progress towards change. He behaved like a messed up person then, like someone with inadequate moral thinking. Is he a different person now, or has he stayed stuck?

I'm a little frustrated that therapy has been described as navel-gazing and selfish. I disagree. You both had reasons for choosing therapy and the digging is always painful. My experience has been that good therapy is really, really hard work. While you are understanding something, you make mis-steps and wrong turns because everything gets a bit more confusing and terrible before it starts to get clear again.

And if you are unhappy, which is totally understandable, then don't let go of the past. It's not going to disappear and will keep nagging you. Confront it when you are ready. If you take days, months or years to work it through, that's nobody else's timescale to dictate.

5 years on from finding out about an affair (that had taken place at least two years prior).
It took me the best part of 6 months to stop feeling heartbroken and disgusted.
Another 6 months after feeling furious and desperate for other men to look at me. I wanted to cheat but didn't.
So the first year was awful, very emotional.
The next 3 years I put it to one side, tried very hard to forgive. The last 6 months or so I've been feeling awful about it again, like I am so disappointed in myself for not leaving when I found out. I could have met someone new and been happy with them or alone, instead i'm still sat here feeling like I am weak and reject-able. I know I won't fully trust him again, he will probably cheat again in the future. I also miss not being with someone I actually really like and fancy because all of this has really dialled down the attraction.

Don't live like I do. I wish I could get out but I'm stuck. If you don't feel happy with him now you probably never will. You've tried to live with it and forgive but it's not always possible.

Sorry for you. It's shit, isn't it.

@ravenmum I am so sorry you went through that, it makes my heart heavy to think how much your ex husband hurt you. I am so sorry.

It makes the betrayal bad for me because when I initially agreed to take him back, it was, as you said on the basis of a drunken mistake that got out of hand when he was in a mess in himself. However, him pretending to be single shows intent.

I see it as a combination of reasons b and c that you listed, he wanted his options open and wasn't fully invested (but was telling me he was and hence I was fully invested).

I think the actual sex with this woman (the first time) was getting drunk and doing something stupid, thinking with his dick rather than actively attempting to hurt me, yes. I am certain he never wanted to hurt me but he created circumstances for that to happen.

I always think of "I didn't mean to hurt you" as someone smashing your head against a wall and saying they didn't mean to hurt you. Maybe that wasn't their intention, but they knew what happens to a head when it hits concrete. I think people who cheat probably don't think about it much, but they know deep down how much it will hurt.

@Gentleness I agree about the therapy. This was a man who had a lot of deep wounds, and those made him into an arsehole. I respected him a lot for going to therapy, and it wasn't something he enjoyed, he found it really hard to change who he was but he did it.

I think when I go to therapy it's sort of comforting and a release. For him it was about going back to infancy, childhood abuse he had buried for decades, terrible rejection in relationships and feeling like he was okay to be selfish because no one else was ever going to look after him.

I am not making excuses for him, because I have been through shit in my past and never acted like a complete arsehole, but he faced up to the reasons and he wanted to be better.

When he was begging me in the beginning to forgive him, and telling me he really hated himself for what he had become, I told him I didn't want a guilty partner who hated himself and that he had to go and make things right with himself.

He did that, and it was a really hard, difficult and in the end lovely journey and was not at all navel gazing. It was not linear and through this process he went from being a really detached, self reliant and together guy to being a crying wreck at times. It was hard for us both, but I think the love was the real deal and what we ended up with was better than what we started with.

I think the reason this is coming back on me now is just the circumstances. The first six months I was in shock. I really didn't know what to think and at that time I didn't know the real, full details of it all. It probably took six months for all the information to come out.

After that, he was going through his existential crisis and was going through such hard times in therapy that I think my focus switched to healing him and somehow I didn't heal myself. I don't think this was his fault as he was doing all he could but I sort of switched it off.

Then over the last year I think I started to live life again and come back to myself and I realised how much pain I had buried over this in trying to be positive. I know he wants to get married now, so it's time to decide on forever and I am torn between loving this person so much and the memory of how he once hurt me so much.

@BrilliantBetty that is so sad, I am so sorry. I do worry that I will look back and regret staying with someone who did this to me, but then I also worry I would regret leaving more.

I still fancy him and like him, probably more than ever, as our relationship got better after all this. It inspired him to be the man I deserve (his words) and he's lived up to that which made me feel even stronger for him.

As I am writing I sound like I am moaning because I suppose we are already "over it", but it just never leaves and sometimes I find myself crying on the train or something just remembering how awful it felt.

You sound so kind and wise. I think it's inevitable that once the drama has passed, your real feelings have time to bubble up - so it's your turn for therapy and healing. You need to decide to stay on your own terms because those regrets and tears are not going anywhere without being looked at and assessed properly. It's not moaning to worry about the best thing to do with an open wound.

I think we can give lots of reason for cheating ie poor coping strategies, previously hurt etc but at the end of the day cheating is about that person only thinking of themselves, only caring about their wants and needs. That isn't love

The cheater is able to have sex with one person and then come home and have sex with you, putting you at risk. That isn't love

They can look you in the eye and tell you a thousand little lies " I was at the football" when really they are forming a relationship with someone else. All the little things you think are special between you are actually shared with someone else. That isn't love

Thanks Gentle

I think somehow psychologically I got lost in this. Six months of it being all about shock, 18 months of it being all about him and him changing and being this great person and then finally there was peace to look at myself and grieve.

As I said in previous posts, my partner before him died, and I was just at the end of 8 years of grief when I met DP. I remember going on lots of dates over that year and just thinking they were all so awful and I felt no connection and nothing was ever going to work out for me.

Then I swiped him, and from minute one I thought "wow". We clicked, it was sweet, he was the perfect gentleman and there was none of that "waiting for him to call" nonsense. I remember I fell asleep on his shoulder on our second date because he felt like home.

So in my mind, I believed we were both fully invested, and to learn that he in effect had another girlfriend in a different place was shattering for me. I had such high hopes for this relationship as if it was sent to me by the universe to make all the pain of the past be okay.

Then I think I was just determined to fix things, and he was so willing and working so hard at it that it made it easy for me to almost detach from it and instead focus on the repair. I had lost my first love so tragically, with no sense of control and no agency that I couldn't bear losing my second with equally no agency.

I came to a point where I was just able to sit with my sadness, and how deeply I am hurt that my story of our relationship was not his. I really just want to be happy, and I am happy and we love each other but I can't help the grief I am feeling for what I thought my life was.

@Christinayangtwistedsister you are completely right, and all that is true.

I think betrayal is like a shadow hanging over the relationship, it's always there

Yes, you are right. I have spoken to so many people about this trying to understand it. I know many bad marriage that survived infidelity and a couple of really lovely marriages but it's a hard thing to live with.

It is, maybe you need to take some time for yourself. You have had to deal with two big losses, two periods of grieving and that isn't easy.

Maybe go and see someone and talk it all though, at one point to need to be able to either truly put it behind you and move on or leave. Living with one foot in and one foot out is torture

Thank you. I am not saying I have one foot out the door, far from it, I am more just pondering the sense of grief I still feel and wondering if I will always feel it or if I am being daft to feel it given how well things worked out.

We all want our DP to be devoted to us, don't we? Me grasping that for the first year (at least) mine wasn't and he was far from slaying dragons for me is hard to live with

You're grieving for what you thought you had and for the person you thought he was and it's okay to feel like that but at one point there has to be an end to it, for your own sanity

Thank you, I don't think I'd done it before. I was so caught up in focusing on the positive

Don't you think you might be happier without all this therapy and dragging up the past? So he wasn't slaying dragons for you when you were barely started on your relationship - let it go!
You seem to have bought into the psychobabble hook, line and sinker.
Deep wounds - and existential crisis - and improving himself - and avoidant attacher ... the poor man must feel like he's a textbook case study! He shagged someone before he was fully committed to you. It happens. It doesn't have to colour the rest of your life.
I don't know how much it costs an hour to spill it all out - but therapists have a vested interest in not saying 'Get over yourselves!'

How old are you both? What is his relationship history? Are you similar in terms of income, careers, assets?

@katy1213, he had a 4 month affair that started because his ego was bruised in work. He lied for months to 2 women. The ow must have felt very used by him.

I know he wants to get married now, so it's time to decide on forever and I am torn

I was wondering why you were reflecting so deeply right now - when in theory everything has turned around in the RS. He has fixed himself and the RS is better. That’s all good when you are focusing on the day to day - but when you are reflecting on the whole RS - the past and the future - it’s not enough for you at this time. You are not ready to commit to him right now - just like he was not ready to commit to you in the first year of your RS.

Take your time. This is your time. Will he wait and afford you the time to recover that you afforded him?

Are you able to talk to him about this? Or are you afraid of his reaction - will it will upset him? Will he withdraw? Are you worried you will hurt him? Do you feel you owe him because he worked on himself (you don’t - you gave him a lifelong gift by sticking with him whilst he went through this).

Are you having your own therapy as it seems that your sudden bereavement is also shadowing this RS - maybe when dreadful things happen such as this it’s hard to understand how someone can choose actions which will hurt others.

Take your time. I think that the detail of him not mentioning it to the OW that he had a GF is a red-herring because it would be normal not to mention your personal life when living in another country - but I think that somehow you need this to tangibly hook your hurt on rather than just knowing this isn’t resolved for you.

They have been happy for several years - it's behind them - what purpose does it serve now raking this up?

I think most people would be upset if they found out 14 months into their relationship that their boyfriend had another girlfriend for the past four months. Wouldn't they? I am questioning my own sanity now.

@katy1213

They have been happy for several years - it's behind them - what purpose does it serve now raking this up?

No raking up is required because her own feelings have become naturally and spontaneously unsettled to reveal confusion and doubt when he wants to get married. She needs to explore this gut feeling and resolve it one way or another. It’s there. It’s real.