Getting married after an affair

[Barra2wq]

Hello

I’m looking for a little advice..

Last year I did something I wasn't proud of and had an affair which lasted no longer than a couple of months.

As you would expect, this destroyed my family and my relationship. I know it’s all my fault. My partner has been trying so hard to put this behind him. I see how sad he is every day and I caused that. We have been fighting for the past 10 months to put things right. Some days things are good and some days he finds things really hard.

I have come to my senses and I can see what destruction I caused and have taken full responsibility for the affair and cut all contact with the AP when I disclosed the affair last year.

Fast forward 10 months or so and we are due to get married next month. This is something both of us always planned on doing, not out of guilt or sympathy, but because I love him and see that I made the biggest mistake of my life and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. He loves me. He always has and I can really see that now.

Things are good when they are good and I love what we have and feel so lucky we have a second chance.

Our teenage daughter who knows about the affair is refusing to come to our wedding. She wants nothing at all to do with it. She has anxiety issues anyway and hates public events, but I can’t help thinking that the real reason is the affair. She has stated a few times that I know why she won’t come to the wedding.

What can I do?

We don't want to get married without our only daughter not being there, but at the same time we can’t call off the wedding.

I know I caused this mess, but we have worked hard to put things right. I understand you can’t come back from an affair in just 10 months. But we love each other and I don't know how I can get my daughter to see that.

Any advice would be appreciated

I can understand your DD POV. I also think that it's very soon post affair to be getting married. It's very unlikely that your DP knows at this stage if he can ever 'get over' the affair. Much better to know for certain before commiting to a lifetime together.

There is a risk that you are very keen to get married because you want to prove your love and that the affair is well and truly in the past. And your DP may be keen because he wants to draw a line under the affair, and hopes that getting married will help that happen. But getting married won't make any of those feelings he has go away.

I would suggest postponing the wedding until a time when he is sure he can move on, and your DD has more belief in you and your relationship.

And if you must get married, then I'd make it a private, quiet affair. I hate to say it but I think those sat in the congregation will be thinking about how it's only 10 months since your affair and it will feel a bit cringe and false. I suspect that's part of what your DD is worried about.

Your daughter seems to be the only sensible one of the three of you.

Why is it so important to you to know get married? It sure as hell wasn't important when you were shagging someone else?

Why do you need to? Do you see it as a way of redeeming yourself?

You also seem unbelievable confident that your OH won't come to his senses on the day and say no to you at the last minute in front of everyone. It's a big risk, him saying there declaring his love and lifetime commitment to you, knowing that less than a year ago you would have choked on the words or lied.

You can cancel a wedding 100%. It's as simple as ringing the suppliers and the guest and saying "the wedding has been postponed/cancelled". It's no more difficult than that.

At least give yourselves time to see if the relationship can really recover and if you are both genuine in terms of moving forward.

He will never get over it. There will always be that wedge. He will bring it up when things are bad as a tool.
I think he's crazy to stay in the first place and crazier to be planning to go ahead with the wedding.

I was coming to say no don’t do it if he cheated before marriage don’t commit yourself and marry him!!! Then it was you that was the scum bag. So you only want "get married he’ll be fine!"
Can’t do it sorry. You’ve ruined it, you’ll waste time and money getting married and it won't last because this will always come up and cause issues. But good for you for working so hard! You got your fun now you just want it forgotten for the wedding! Poor thing! If you weren't so self absorbed you'd just let him go but if you weren't so self absorbed it wouldn't have happened in the first place.

Hope he pulls the pin before he walks down the aisle... For his sake. Some people try to stay to save marriages, there is no marriage to save here I can't believe he's still willing to push himself through it...

@CrinklyCraggy affairs don’t ‘just happen’. Attraction does. There are no right or wrong circumstances in life where an affair will ‘just happen’ like some spontaneous thing that none of us have control over. We are all responsible for our own actions.
Somebody has to make a definite choice and take definite action for attraction to turn into an affair. Attraction just happens, absolutely. But what happens as a result of that attraction is down to the people involved. People make conscious decisions to pursue relationships with others and are responsible for their actions. You can’t help who you find attractive or who you fall for, no, that just happens, but you then choose what you do about it.
You don’t ‘ just happen’ to text them or invite them for a drink or flirt. You want to, you decide to and you act on it.

OP if you and your partner are in a good place and want to get married (he doesn’t sound ready at all to me) then do so. But you have no right to ask your daughter to support you in doing something she wants to have nothing to do with. More time is needed. If you truly can’t wait then go ahead, but she can’t be expected to take part in something she can’t support. It’s very sad, but even if you and your partner are ready, she clearly isn’t.

Cancel the wedding if you feel your daughter must be there. It doesn't make sense that you'd get married, it sounds as if you just want to have a wedding rather than something meaningful and it kind of makes a mockery of the idea of marriage. Your daughter has the right idea.

Delay your wedding. When my dad had an affair it really screwed up my emotions for quite a while. My parents had what they presented to me and my siblings as a healthy relationship which actually was not dealing with any issues and pretending all ok. My dad had an affair with a woman the same age as my older sister. It was a betrayal to the family , my mum decided to forgive and then we were supposed to pretend everything was OK after I had been dragged in to alot of adult conversations as a teenager about their relationship and told I could discuss with no one and then to outside world pretend all was OK despite it gave me trust issues about relationships and I had been used as councelor to both my parents as they did not want to discuss with anyone else. If my parents had expected me to go to a wedding 10 months later I would have not wanted to. Their relationship was not healthy at this point despite what they tried to portray and I know the trust was gone alot from their relationship. They pretend now it never happened. Put Your daughter first and give her some time to get trust back in you as well and talk as a family, don't brush under carpet and expect her to come to wedding like it all did not happen. Your family needs to heel and its as a consequence of your choices and actions.

havent read the whole thread.
i think you all need counselling at this point not marriage.

It takes on average three years to get over an affair doesn't it? Why would you get married after one when you can tell just by looking at him that he's obviously still traumatised by it? Why would you think your dd would want any part of it? Why would you not respect her feelings? You sound totally self absorbed OP.

marriage may end in divorce and it will be a total disaster.
there doesnt seem to be a good base for a marriage right now. trust is shaky.

Can’t cancel it? Yes of course you can. Or at least postpone it. It’s taken you this long to get round to it, what’s another year to see if he really has forgiven you?

I assume that you don't want to cancel because you might have to admit that you had a affair. Postpone it even if you have to come up with a believable excuse to preserve your own reputation. Your dd is very wise about it being a sticking plaster. At her age she will have seen the impact of relationship issues between her classmates' parents for years.

Neither you or dp are anywhere near ready to make that kind of commitment.

I don't think you'll be able to keep a secret from the wider family if you proceed with the wedding.

I think 10 months is not long enough.
Am pleased you’ve worked things out but why the sudden rush now?
I would delay for at least another year.

Counsellors often say that when one partner has had an affair, the other partner needs to decide all over again if they want to enter into a relationship with that person - that person as they are now, so someone they know has at some stage been unfaithful and let them down, and start the relationship from scratch.

Which would mean that you're both doing the equivalent of getting married 10 months after meeting someone 'new'. It's way too soon, it's a way of you both trying to draw a line under what happened without having already done the hard and painful work it takes to move past an affair.

Your daughter sounds like she's being the most mature about this situation tbh.

Way too soon.