My friends dh had an affair with her bf. I can't get to grips with her desire to try again. Help me understand.

[Oblomov]

I was really looking for some of the mumsneteers whos partners had had an affair, but that they had tried to get their relationship back on track.
I know my views are a bit black and white. I always thought that because of my black and white personality, trust was very important and that not only the affair, but the lies aswell, would mean it would be over for me.
But it is easy for me to say this, becasue it has never happened to me.
He has not moved out. They are there trying to work things out.
But my overwhelming urge is to query how she will ever trust him again.
but I know that this is notappropriate. It may be the way I feel, but it is not how she feels. So I need to ask quations and be supportive of how SHE FEELS and what SHE wants to do.
But I don't know enough about it, to understand, or to be able to relate to 'where she is' in her thinking.
This is a genuine question. Could people please explain to me 'where she is' and what her rational is ?

I would say that people and relationships are not black and white -- there are loads of shades of gray and in a long term relationship like a marriage there are times when your partner might not be the right person for you at that time.. needs change, but love can be constant.. I would say if my DH was unfaithful at some point in our marriage, I would not see that as a reaon to end our lives together and our family life.. we would need to come together again and chnage and adapt.. but the love we have underpining us would still be there..

I think it depends on how sincere he is in his remorse. And I agree things are never black and white in a relationship.

How do you regain trust ?

Oblomov - I think you have to try to put it in context.

Affairs are usually the sign that something is not right in the relationship. That doesn't mean that absolutely every last thing about the life and family that two people have built together is horrible or unpleasant - on the contrary, often many things are great.

So, people are prepared to try to work through affairs, use them to recognise where the relationship was unsatisfactory, and try to get back "on track" to a place where both people are happy and moving forward together.

IME, affairs can often be a symptom of things which are wrong in a marriage. There is never an "excuse" for having an affair, but if both parties can acknowledge that there was something lacking in the marriage, identify it and change it, then they may well stay together because there was a "reason" for the affair and knowing what that was, they can both accept a proportion of blame and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Sorry - jusr re-read the above and it sounds too simplistic, but its the only way I can explain how I felt when it happened to me.

There are then, of course, men (and women) who just have affairs regardless of the state of their marriage and in those circumstances, your friend has probably just decided that she would rather have an unfaithful husband than no husband at all. Being on your own is pretty scary and some people are just prepared to put up with more shit than others..

You regain trust by living together and behaving well and considerately towards one another for a long time , until you have built up enough goodwill that the other person trusts you again and isn't suspicious of what you do.

DH and I (although he wasn't actually my DH then) split up in 1993 when I started having an affair with someone at work. But we got back together again after a year and we're still together.

i did it. my oh of 11 years had an affair with a slut friend. we split up and sold the house only to get back together and i feel i can trust him but he has had to work for it. to be honest i know it sounds like bullshit but it has made us better and stronger.
i do think that people make mistakes and he was very sorry for his ( i made sure of it) i have forgiven him, not sure i will ever forget though. you cant be that hurt and forget it. i think it helps that i realise that

She admitted that they both knew that things were not great. She had talked about it extensively with her bf, thus I guess the betrayal was even worse.
She knew things were no good, but I think she was surprised, even taking that into account that her dh did actually have an affair.
I think she thought he ... I don't know how to phrase this ... that he wasn't the type - that he , no matter how bad things got, would never do that. So I guess that coes as a shock that someone you thought you knew, you thought they held certain beliefs about thingd,turns out you were wrong.
It is very nice to see - and yet I am very sorry that you had to go through it, posters who have rebuilt trust ( Dino & Pud - thank you for your input).
Do you think that some people , once trust goes, that is it. Whilst for others, for whatever the reason, maybe their personality and beliefs, with alot of work, it gan be regained.

I have been reading threads. It seems that many people are able to forgive/move on/rebuild trust. Many are not. Such a personal decision.

Oblomov,
I think much depends upon the relationship you had in the years before the betrayal and once it is out eventually the "betrayer" deals with trying to put it right.

My dh had an affair 4 years ago with a work colleague. we had been together 20 years (married 16 of them)we have 3 beautiful children and as strange as it may sound given what he did- we had a great time together.
Affairs are often down to timing- whilst they do often reflect deep issues in a relationship they can equally reflect deep issues in an individual that may noy have much to do with their marriage.They are escapism, fantasy, not based on reality- usually when discovered and reality hits they cannot surrvive....because they are not grounded on meaning, they start with excitment, a boost to the ego- often lead to lust but seldom lead to a eal understanding of one another like a long term relationship has.

For me- I too was completely devastated, never evre thought my best friend, my lover would do such a thing- but at the time in his life when this happened he "lost the plot" and almost lost everything he hold dear. he woke up just in time and has been doing all the right things ever since to try and win back my trust.

I decided at the time not to walk away but to fight for us- I looked at what we'd had for so long together and realised that this was the time for me to be strong to stick with us and try to get him to see that what we had was not worth throwing away for "a thrill and an ego boost"

So we worked on "us" but we firstly worked on ourselves, both saw counsellors and tried to make semse of what had happened and why.

As others have said-we have come through stronger and closer. it is certainly not black and white when you are living it and as agood friend all i can advise is to support her in whatever she wants to do- it's heer life she has to live it not you-I understand you are angry for her and do not want her hurt any more BUT she will be going through a rollercoaster of emotions she probably doesn't know what extactly she feels yet- be there for her listen but do not tell her what to do.

My friends did just that and i am so thankful for them.

maturer, thank you for your post.
I knew what I had to do, as her friend, but was struggling with my own ideas, I kept having this overwheming desire to get her to tell him where to go - and I knew that was no good.
Becasue she has already made her decision , and it is my job to support her.
Your post opened my eyes & made me consider things I had not thought of.
Thank you ever so much.

Oblomov - I totally second maturer's thoughts - she is spot on as usual!

The trust thing is hard, especially if there has been a lot of deception. But it is possible to rebuild that over time, but it will require your friends dh to be totally honest with her about everything, and to realise that he needs to be utterly transparent in his behaviour for quite some time.
While I was going through this process I made my dh tell me everything about everything, and he complied. At times I half wished that he wasn't telling me some things, but I also realised that I had to know, to feel like I was totally 'in the picture' as it were to have any chance of succeeding.
Your friend is in a horrible place right now but she is lucky to have a caring friend like you to support her.

I have been married for 10 years next year. Together with DH for 16 years (since I was 17 years old).

In 2003, unbeknownst to each other, we both had an affair.

We found each other out. It nearly killed us.

You see - we lost our way and each other. Somehow, in the aftermath of DS1's birth our lives became a litany of chores and to be honest our marriage became a bit of a pissing contest (I can still hear strains of "but I changed his nappy four times today, so now you need to do the next four nappy changes etc etc").

Believe it or not, DH and I have always loved each other passionately. We are the most insular of couples who are totally in sync most of the time. Unfortunately, when all the wheels fell off, it happened on a grand scale.

The fallout was hideous. The hurt was horrific.

We decided to work on it and 4/5 years later, we are a stronger couple. We know our weak points and we know what's important.

Infidelity doesn't always mean that it's over. It means that there are problems. I am not one to give up at the first hurdle. I am one, however, to learn from my mistakes.

Happily the lessons were learned

degags-spot on!

Affairs (especially in long term relationships) are often the result of the partners "letting life get in the way"- 1 or in your case both "loose the plot" for a while......if they are lucky, if not too much destructive emotion kills their friendship- then slowly they can rebuild and LEARN- about themselves and each other. It can become stronger.

I feel there is a lot of social pressure when a party cheats for the other to "kick them out"- " don't let them trest you this way" it's almost seen as aweakness not to. however I can see from my own and others experiences that in some (not all ) cases it is a strength to endure the pain and stay with the relationship and if both open there eyes to what's going on, what's really behind the cheatimg and are honest and open in dealing with it- the healing together can bring you closer.

Glad to hear you are pulling through

sorry- dejags...got the name wrong!

I think it does depend a lot on previous relationships and childhood stuff too.
I saw my dad have an affair and leave my Mum devastated, and I have been cheated on countless times in the past..

So if dp had an affair I can honestly say it would be over, I just couldn't forgive it or ever feel the same way about him. He knows that as he knows the history behind it.

However, my best friend went through this a couple of years ago, and she forgave him and they are still together and very happy now.
I found it hard not to tell her to get rid of him, and I was amazed when they got back together, but it was not my place to judge and now I'm glad I didn't say anything.

You're being a good friend.

Oblomov: if my DH had an affair (regardless of who it was with), I would try and get things back on track with him. Some relationships (and families) are not worth breaking up because a mistake was made by one party. Lots of people would stick by a partner who made other mistakes that don't involve sex and it would be seen as support in getting through their problems - perhaps you could see your friend's situation like this?

My parents are divorced, following affairs, but in their case, the marriage was not right in the first place, so divorce was the correct way to go. Perhaps this is why I don't think an affair is the end of the world, it is a problem that can be resolved, if the relationship is worth it. Although, even given my forgiving attitudes, I have never and would never have an affair.