Therapy with cheating husband, do I need all the details of what he has done?

[Jstsaying123]

I recently found out my husband had been cheating, I'm not going to go into all the details, but have been together for 18+years,have kids etc. Life isn't always easy as most married people will agree. Anyway I'm still not sure I know all the details of what my husband did. The therapist is asking why I need to know all the details and if that will end up hurting me more. I feel I want to know everything, but I can see her point. So help me out here, would it matter how many women your husband cheated on you with? Is 1 the same as 10?.... Obviously my head is a mess, but I think it does matter. I also think if 2 months or 2 years down the line something else comes out from this time that he hasn't confessed, it will break me and ruin me for good. I want to believe what my husband says and trust in the therapy process but I still feel I need to know all of it... Advice please, especially from anyone who has been in a similar situation xoxo

He is very remorseful, he arranged the therapist and is going himself, he is reading books on how to be a better husband etc he has told his family which was a big deal because they are old skool and were really hurt by his behaviour... He is telling me I know everything. He answers my questions whenever I ask, he will give me full access to his phone etc (not that I want to go down that constant checking route).... I suppose I'm just going to have to take what he says and either work out if I can accept it and if I still am unsure of him then we probably couldn't continue.... Part of me is wanting all the details, is she pretty, why her, what did you do etc, so maybe that isn't healthy. It's just my nature to gather all the information and then I can confident in my decision. But in this case maybe knowing all the smaller details is just torturing myself in the long run as it will always be in my head...

Why is it your job to do the work to repair the marriage? He broke it, let him do the work.

You need to know or you'll spend forever wondering. Get it all out now, every detail and work from there. You don't want to put months into therapy to find out what he did was 10x worse than what you knew.

I’d need to know everything or I’d always be assuming the worst. If I know everything then at least I can look at it it long and hard until it hurts less.

Of course you feel lost, I'm sorry this has happened to you, finding out you live with a proven liar.

How do you know anything he tells you in therapy will be the truth.
I wouldn't believe him as an upstanding, honest reliable person from what you have told us.

I myself stay away from people like that, whether you can tolerate having someone lacking in morals and was unconcerned about hurting you, I don't know and that is your choice but it will be hard and take extraordinary strength.

I know myself, and I know I coudn't live with someone who actively chose to hurt me, husband or not.

I wish you well in whatever you choose, whether you want the full details I feel is irrelevant as you know this individual can lie very well and I should imagine his lying has not stopped.

Remember, whatever you choose to do, this decision can be changed at any point, what you decide now is not written in stone.

@StartupRepair

Why is it your job to do the work to repair the marriage? He broke it, let him do the work.

Exactly. You're jumping through hoops to save something he actively chose to throw away.

We’re you happy in the relationship before you found about the cheating? Was he a good husband? A good dad? What is making you actually want to work on the marriage?

I needed to know everything
It wasn’t forthcoming at first but I kept catching our lies so we had a last chance saloon chat when I wanted to know every last detail

Some of it was very helpful. Knowing the exact dates and times he was with her meant I didn’t have the constant brain churn of wondering if that time he was late for dinner was really work or not
It also helped me frame the gaslighting bit of it by knowing which dates he was lying to me and which he wasn’t. It stopped me feeling like I was going mad

But… I found out too much. I know what car she drives and every time I see one, it dredges it all back up in a way it wouldn’t if I hadn’t asked
I also asked a lot of questions about the sex, and it’s pretty much killed any chance of me ever wanting sex with anyone again, I just feel quite repulsed by it
Who knows if that is all part of the overall betrayal or just because I insisted on being told exactly what they did and how

But overall, I think I only began to process it all once I knew the full parameters of what had happened, why, and when. If it was all still an unknown, I would still be stuck on discovery day

It’s also a very important part of regaining some scrap of trust
Making him tell you things that he finds humiliating, make him squirm, make him have to expose the worst parts of him. If he isn’t prepared to do that, he doesn’t actually care and still just wants to put himself first, I think

Similar situation to you, I had to know everything. Every detail however painful to hear (and it was 😔). But for me, it would've been hell constantly wondering, not knowing, my imagination in overdrive.

I didn't blindly trust again, I needed openess and transparency and similarly his family were told. I only wish I'd built myself up again before accepting him back, worked on my own self esteem. But this is the path I chose. I don't think I'll fully trust anyone again.

Yeah, I agree with he should be doing the work to help himself be a better person, work on himself, find out why he chucked us away, treating me like crap etc, I have told him all that. He is doing quite a lot of the work, I just went to the therapist more for myself because I was so hurt and not thinking clearly. See what, if anything could be done for us,because even if we separate we will still have to Co parent so we need to keep things amicable, for my health and sanity too. Emotional upset somehow make me feel ill physically..... You have all made really good points, I feel its helpful so thanks. I believe I do need all the info to make an informed choice, it matters to me what he did, when, with who etc, I know I have boundaries and won't just accept anything and everything. I just need to get past the numb feeling and think straight to know myself and my boundaries, hopefully that confidence will come soon. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

I’d want to know absolutely everything if there was any chance of wiping the slate and moving on together.

I couldn’t stay though, I know the trust would be gone and that would be that.

It’s going to haunt you every day. You will think about the other women. Every time he’s 5 minutes late in, when he doesn’t answer his phone straight away, when he gets a txt snd smiles… you will be an anxious wreck, even if he never cheats on you again, you will never fully know for sure

I wanted to know everything, literally every detail. I really don’t know why? I still don’t understand it. I really did not trust what ex DH said, they’d only slept in the same bed a few times, fumbles, fingers, etc. I just didn’t add up to me.

DH came back for a few weeks, then the OW sent me nasty messages, and some photos. Ex DH could have been telling the truth, but he wasn’t based on the photos. It’s so so hard. I wish you all the best.

I'm so sorry you're in this situation.
I've actually been through the same as you. We have ended up staying together, and it has been a few years since I found out, but it's still very hard sometimes.

I personally was OK with the broad details. Where, when and who. I have not wanted to go into the detail in my own mind. I actually don't want to know. You mentioned not wanting to check his phone etc, but I have completely given myself a permission to snoop. He's given me all the passwords to his bank accounts and communication apps which I do check regularly just to reassure myself that I'm not being lied to. Because if I was again, I would just finish the marriage there and then.

Separating is not easy when you have a life together. . Kids, house, friends, relatives, plans, dreams.. But staying together is hard too. We are not very happy together, and haven't been for years.. I guess we're just hanging on because life is hard, and for us it would be even harder if we divorced due to our particular circumstances..

I would need all the info, because I'm that type of person, the possibilities in my head are usually worse than the reality and once I know something I can stop torturing myself with questions. But other people will be different, if they don't know the facts they can keep a bit of a distance from it, and if they do know the facts they are lodged in their brain and can never leave and will be thought about constantly.

I think though for most people things like 'how many people was it's would be a fundamental - once is maybe a mistake, multiple times is a character flaw

I think there is a difference between once and twenty times.
Once could be loads of things - moment of weakness, that particular person, midlife crisis yadda yadda. It's not OK but you can work on it.
20 times (I.e. 20 different women) is disrespect bordering on psychopathy. That's someone who sees women as objects and routinely lies.
So I would want to know

You might find this interesting
www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_rethinking_infidelity_a_talk_for_anyone_who_has_ever_loved/up-next?language=en

OP you will never ever get the full facts.

Is it the details you really want or need to know or the motivation behind it? For us it was understanding the motivation. Being able to ask whatever I needed to was helpful and he was supported, as was i by some friends who were trained in this kind of therapy. More than 20 years later we are still together and stronger and definitely in love because we fought hard for our relationship and we’re prepared to be honest and really learned to communicate with one another. If you both want things to work, you honestly can get past this.
As for knowing the details, I can’t recall details that hurt me at first. It is a tough road and there maybe times where you are overwhelmed or seem to go backwards but there is hope, please be encouraged, people can grow and change and remain faithful. Wishing you both well and hoping you find the path that is right for you

Hey! First of all I'm sorry for what you're going through. It's miserable I know that first hand. I was exactly the same as you though, I wanted to know everything. I didn't care if it hurt me it was more important to know exactly what happened between my partner and those other girls. I have spoken with other friends and family about their experiences of being treated on and all have said the same thing. They wanted to know everything that went on in that cheating behaviour.

You need to know everything to be able to process this healthily. I’m shocked your therapist would suggest otherwise.

Surviving infidelity is a forum that would help you right now. It’ll give you up to date info and current thinking around this, which I’m afraid to say isn’t always here on mumsnet. Also ‘affair recovery’ videos and website is really good.

There is hope for your marriage is he is willing to change.

You are absolutely right to heal yourselves first before you can heal the marriage. You will be in shock and struggling with anxiety, you need to get counselling BUT you may want to rethink who is counselling you as I do worry about a therapist who’s advising you to rugsweep!

I think it’s good that you’re thinking these things through OP. Personally I wouldn’t stay but if I did I’d need to understand exactly what I was forgiving - knowing the scale of the transgression is key to being able to move forward; and I think if you didn’t know the full extent of it you’d have it niggling in the back of your mind.

(Though I’m a bit boggled that one of his attempts to make things right is reading a book about how to be a better husband - surely you don’t need to read a book to know that cheating on your wife is not something a good husband does??)

I struggle to understand what is so special about a marriage that someone would accept such humiliation and lack of respect. I don't understand how you could face the rest of your life with someone who would happily treat you like that.

@PurpleOkapi

Personally, I wouldn't feel like I could make an informed decision about whether I wanted to try to fix things, or whether that was even possible, without knowing a lot more information than just "he cheated." Why and how did it happen? Is there something I can change that would prevent it from happening again by addressing whatever issues led to it on his end? If so, is that something I'm willing to change? I feel like I'm the only one who has the right to even try to answer those questions. If he was deliberately withholding information so that I couldn't possibly answer them accurately, I wouldn't believe he was really trying to fix things. I would interpret it more as him trying to make it less likely that I'd leave, and even if I was willing to forgive and move past the initial infidelity, I wouldn't stay with someone who thought it was fine to try to manipulate me that way.

And if a therapist said that all of this was fine and I had no right to want to know that, I'd find a better therapist. To be fair, though, asking "Why do you want to know?" isn't the same as saying "You don't have the right to know, and you're better off not knowing."

Can I check, are you implying that the person who's been cheated on should ask themselves how they made it happen and how to prevent it again?

I agree with the latter part, is he just trying to stop you from leaving? My ex was definitely trying to do that but making zero effort to actually address what he did and how I was feeling.

I do understand the need to explore whether this is salvageable though, I think it gives you some control and time to reflect. Maybe it delays the inevitable but it gives you the power to say it's over on your terms. Everyone's different thought. It's ask such a shock.

I would require the full story, including but not limited to:
*A complete, detailed timeline
*What he and OW discussed about me, our marriage, our children, and their relationship
*What future plans/promises he made to OW
*How he gave himself permission to lie and cheat

If the infidelity involved paying sex workers for in-person or online interactive sex, I would also want to know all the facts, a detailed timeline, cost details, and how many women.

I am appalled at the therapist’s attitude.

It depends on the level of detail you're talking about.

How many women, how often, how did you meet, why, where, did she/they know you were married etc. I think you need those details to understand what you're working with and expected to forgive, unless you're prepared to make a blanket forgiveness which you're not , by the sounds. I would say rightly. Your husband needs to be open with you about this.

If you're asking details that will hurt you in the future regardless of whether you split such as why did you find her attractive, what was the sex like, comparisons, seriously consider whether you'll regret asking.

I think the facts, logistics, reasons etc yes. More intimate details, think carefully whether you really want to know. I would personally rather walk away than have to live with knowing exactly what drew a partner to someone else.