Recovering from affair

[Roxylou2011]

Hi, been married to my husband for 6 years been together 11. Two beautiful children. We’ve always had a great relationship. I’m august 2020 he was very off with me and told me he didn’t love me anymore. This came as a complete shock. Aside from lockdown being a strange time I didn’t feel any reasons to have issues in our marriage.
I’ll cut out the nitty gritty but this went on on and off until January 2021. Turned out he was having an affair with someone at work. He is a firefighter as is she.
Heartbroken isn’t even the word. During the whole time the different level of emotions I face were horrific. I have no idea how I hid it all from the kids but I did. I lost an insane amount of weight as I couldn’t eat. I was unwell. Lost, confused angry.
It got to the point we told the kids we were separating and he moved out. They were shattered and didn’t see it coming.
We spent some time apart, still talking of course because of the kids. He had been on and off with this other woman. She too was married but no kids.
I even spoke to her husband on the phone he too had been dealing with the same as me.
After about 5 weeks of living apart he had a mental breakdown. Got diagnosed by the doctor with severe depression. This was a long time coming. He started therapy and meds. I was having therapy at this point btw.
So anyway his relationship with the other woman ended a few weeks before he moved out (I had spoken to her on the phone) and we decided after a while to reconcile. We both attended therapy together and I can hand on heart say he is a different person. Yes I know trust has been broken and it will take a lot of time and patience and forgiveness this isn’t fixed overnight. This has been my decision. He has shown remorse for what he’s done and he’s a different person, he is still on medication and therapy I think a lot of underlying issues were there. That’s no excuse for what he did I’m not making excuses but I have chosen to move forward.
He moved fire brigades and we’ve moved house as the okd house had as memories for me.
So far we are doing very well
But one thing I’m struggling with is seeing her give the big “I represent women I’m a woman in the fire service” no love you don’t you shit all over a woman and two kids and destroyed a family. She isn’t one bit sorry. I’ve never got revenge or tried to. I never plastered it on social media or called her out because I am bigger than that. Everyone thinks the sun shines out of her backside. But I know the truth. She’s not a woman, she’s an immature little girl. I’d love to have her colleagues know what she did and embarrass her but I don’t know if I should. I feel like she deserves to suffer the way she made me
Equally I need to let go I just hate she got away with it that’s all
Please don’t comment judging my decision to give my marriage a go. He’s paid for what’s happened
I don’t have to forgive her but I have to forgive him

Oh come on, he’s forgiven and she’s the devil. I would 100% get on bored with the hate you have for her, if you’d not decided to Forgive him. He’ll do it again, then you’ll have another woman to add to your list of hatred

Ah, I disagreed so I’m talking rubbish. I’d rather keep my mind open to the fact that both happy and unhappy people cheat and that I know people in happy relationships with much loved partners who still cheated. I also know people in unhappy relationships who cheated.
I just don’t think there are absolutes as to why people cheat. The real reasons for infidelity lie with each individual cheater and are usually less than savoury issues within themselves. Again, reasons, not justifications.
At no point have I justified infidelity. I pointed that out very clearly and always have that there is no justification whatsoever. Reasons for cheating are not the same as justifications. Novelty is a reason, unhappiness is a reason, neither justify cheating.
There are reasons behind all sorts of appalling human behaviour as well as infidelity but none justify it.

You certainly don’t HAVE to forgive your husband OP. I agree that forgiveness is massively overrated and some things are unforgivable. This was at least a 6 month affair not a one off because of a MH crisis. That probably came because he got found out and he realised what he stood to lose.

The OW doesn’t deserve a second of your thoughts, she’s trash but your husband is no better. The reasons that he had an affair are irrelevant, he had one. No matter what ‘karma’ you hope the OW suffers, that won’t change that fact. If it hadn’t been her, it could have been someone else. You are entitled to feel angry at her but it doesn’t solve anything. The type of person who can lie and cheat on their unsuspecting wife/husband for months and lay beside them night after night after having been intimate with someone else, well that’s not someone I would want share my life with or to lay next to for the rest of it.

The only thing that probably would help you resolve this is getting rid of your husband who betrayed you and having the ability to see that they deserved each other, he doesn’t deserve you.

As my Aunt used to say, if an injury isn’t healing, you need to rip off the pus encrusted bandage, open the wound, clean it out and let it heal in the fresh air. It could be more excruciatingly painful than getting the actual injury initially but it’ll soon scar over rather than leaving a pus filled abscess that never totally heals.

Hi OP, I completely understand where you are coming from in regards to these unresolved feelings. Having had my husbands mistress ring me out of the blue and basically tear into me last year, the shock and enormity of it all still hits me at times. Nothing was out of bounds for her and I was basically told to step aside for her as she is better looking and a better person. The rage in me is real about her sheer balls but I understand her more now. She was fighting for my husband and hoped to nuke the marriage that day so that he would leave me. I thank the lord that I have a professional job and cannot afford to get a criminal record( I need a super clean DBS)
That thought kept me in check and has stopped me acting out. I admit though that I have had some homicidal thoughts about both of them. She is a teacher at an upstanding catholic school, who met my husband as a contractor during the school day. In the beginning I thought about writing to her school head, chair of governors and the office staff so everyone could see her real face but I stopped myself. Essentially it was my husband who invited her into our marriage and I remember that. there is a cult though on mumsnet, of the other woman being entirely blameless that I just don’t follow, so you will receive answers telling you that’s she has nothing to do with your husbands actions. Of course she does and those actions always have consequences. With every day that passes you will find yourself feeling more indifferent towards her. Go out with good friends, get a hobby, find ways to distract yourself and grow as a person. Message me if you want to x

I think the key here is in the ops last sentance. “I don’t have to forgive her, but I have to forgive him”

Why does she have to forgive him? Generally the woman who feel they “have to” it’s for a very different reason, lifestyle, shame or finances being a big one. The “let’s play pretend” so no one knows, pride, finances, shame, many reasons some women will just take it, forgive and move on, but focus their ire on the woman, because if she hadn’t said yes, he’d not have cheated, it’s up to her to keep him faithful.

Ah, I disagreed so I’m talking rubbish.

🙄

No.

You’re talking rubbish because someone who cheats due to wanting the novelty factor, is unhappy. A long term relationship isn’t fulfilling that need for a person so they’re not truly happy, the love in the relationship isn’t enough, so they cheat. It all comes back to not being completely happy.

If this is how he deals with difficult times, what coping mechanisms has he learnt to prevent him going outside the marriage again?

This is the problem - it's an emotional issue with cheaters, whereby at some level they can't face up to difficulties or use their words to negotiate or discuss worries, unhappiness etc with their spouse. There is no guarantee that they learn from the damage they've caused.

@Roxylou2011

Yes I agree he did it to me It was both of them. She’s even met my kids before this happened she knew what she was doing. They are both to blame I’m not saying it was all her. What I meant is he’s suffered the consequences of his actions and shown remorse and done and still doing everything to fix this. I guess I just feel like she’s got away with causing what I went through. There are 3 at work that knew about it and got involved. No one else knows. I think what gets to me is she’s always posting about women raising women and sticking together yet she did this and no one knows what she’s really like that’s what gets to me.

How did your husband suffer for what he put the OWs husband through? Were there any consequences there?

Maybe that man would like to beat your husband to a pulp for destroying his family, for wrecking his hopes and dreams, for affecting his trust in women going forward?

Maybe he'd like to go to the new station and tell all of his colleagues the truth and embarrass him (and you) or post it all over social media.

Maybe he'd love to embarrass him and have everyone know the truth about your husband and about what kind of man he really is by letting his family and friends (and therefore your family and friends) all find out about it seeing as your husbands actions led to him having to get a divorce and everyone probably finding out what his wife had done!

You said I can hand on heart say he is a different person
Well this woman is quite possibly a different person now too just like your husband!!

@Treacletoots

Karma's a bitch OP. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow but trust me, she will get it. Please focus on healing yourself, and stop giving her the mind space she doesn't deserve. Focus on you now.

The OP's husband must be due some karma too then??

What did the OP do to deserve the karma of this stitch, I wonder

I was in your position and no I didn't hate the other woman. I spoke to her too. Turns out my ex had told her a load of lies about us not being in a relationship when we obviously were.

Your husband had a choice and he chose her at the time - she had a choice and she chose your husband at the time. Your husband wasn't some random fly who got caught in a spiders Web.

Hating her won't help your recovery and moving on with your husband. You have chosen to move on with your husband. You are still angry with your husband that's why you keep telling yourself how "changed" he is. Recovering from an affair can be a very difficult road. Some can do it, many can't. If you can't let these feelings go you will end up as one of the many who can't recover. Some cheaters blame mental health for having an affair - its called deflection, designed to invoke sympathy from the true victim so their feelings of hurt and anger become overtaken and make life easier for the cheater.

@Roxylou2011if you are still reading here (wouldn’t blame you if you’ve stopped) PLEASE seek help from posters who’ve walked a mile in your shoes and those of your husbands. I really would check out the reconciliation board on surviving infidelity or affair recovery website videos. Mumsnet is full of wonderful people who want to help but you’re damned by both sides of the infidelity argument if you want to reconcile. As this thread shows!

@Thewookiemustgo reading your posts and nodding at every single line! Thank you for always fighting the good fight. You have current affair psychology behind you, there is a profound shift in thinking around this. There is more at play than unhappy marriage or appalling human being, which are very polarised views. I know several very happy couple who reconciled. Some of those didn’t set foot in couples counselling as the cheat knew it was them that needed to do the work to be a safer partner.

And I know 2-3 years healing time has been quoted here, it’s not 2-3 it’s 2-5, whether a betrayed stays or leaves it’s a long road ahead for them and everything the OP is describing is PERFECTLY NORMAL in her timeline.

@BuyDirt, as I said in the hope of not getting rubbished in my original reply to you, we’ll agree to disagree. I’ve got plenty of hard evidence that what you and I have both said is true. You either think that enough love in a relationship definitely means no cheating or you don’t. I don’t. For me, and I respect the fact that you disagree, cheating, whilst unjustifiable, is psychologically way more complex than simply being unhappy or not loving enough. The internal hole some cheaters are using the affair to fill, isn’t always due to primary relationship dissatisfaction.
OP, sorry to get off track. It’s a tough road to travel and only if your partner is totally committed to you, the marriage and reconciliation. If not, then it’s time to leave, you will be suspicious and miserable and that’s no way to live. The OW will stir up feelings of rage and hatred towards another person you never knew you were capable of, but she’s not worth it. You need to put her in the past now, your husband will have felt your pain and anger, and rightly so. He’s the one who broke the vows, although if she knew he was married she became culpable in helping him deceive you from then on, so he’s the one who needs to step up and prove himself to you, it might take a few years. It’s a long slog but worth it in the right circumstances with the right remorseful spouse. Not all of them are, and only you know him well enough here to make that decision.

Bottom line people who cheat, ('unhappy' or not) have broken the rules, been disrespectful and break another person who they claim to love.
The consequences are huge Firefighter knew that it potentially could destroy the marriage. He chose to go ahead anyway. OP may well have told him to leave and divorced him immediately. He did not know how she would react unless he has done this before and already been 'forgiven'
She can hate the other woman, she call also hate him.
Why has she got to put this right?
Because women have to forgive? Be 'nice' and understanding.
She is the one who has to know he has let her down, always in future check for clues if he does it again, feel hatred, despair, rejection on a daily basis for years, until if ever it fades. But he will always be a little bit icky, she will always know it was a close call, he us weak and easily strays.
Life is too short to be a worn out, anxious detective, feeling emotions like hate towards others in a daily basis.
He should be busting a gut to keep you, but I think he is loving you hating her, fighting for him. His ego must be huge.
Is this what you really want for 5 years?

Op I can completely understand your hatred for this woman, who WAS as much to blame as your husband, I would feel the same. You love your husband so you're willing to try and forgive, there's no 'nice' side to this woman from your perspective, no history, nothing, so why would you let her off. I do agree with those saying that for your benefit though, you need to find a way to lessen her importance in your head. I hope you find some peace from all this and can make a better future with your husband

Sorry YOU need to get real

Your husband had the loyalty to YOU and YOUR kids and YOUR family . She had no responsibility to any of you .

Your husband has let you down , not her .

Why should she be publicly shamed like some kind of medieval slut ? Your husband is the issue here . Worry about that .

@Thewookiemustgo I actually agree with what you have said.

Before my own experience, I would have said that your relationship must be broken in some way for an affair/infidelity to occur. The truth is (and I am by no means wearing rose tinted glasses or kidding myself - I am way past that) my marriage was happy. We rarely argued, had a good sex life, two wonderful children, holidays together, weekends away without the kids, he will say I was his best friend, we were the couple people thought would be together forever.

Sadly, he was approaching 40, our lives largely revolved around the kids (as they do when you have young children) and his ego was flattered by a younger, child-free woman at work who probably seemed very exciting to him. WHen the affair was discovered and I ended the marriage, they stayed together for less than 2 years and from what I gather, 'real-life' kicked in and they just weren't meant to be a long term thing as their lives were too different.

I do believe he loved me but I also believe he loved the thrill and excitement and ego boost of that 'newness' you describe. I was never going to be new and exciting to him as I was his wife...the mother of his children.

We are going through divorce now and as much as I wanted to hate him, there is still a degree of unspoken fondness for each other because ultimately, our marriage wasn't an unhappy one.

I also know he will do it to his now girlfriend and probably to any future partner because that has been his pattern all his life. It may take years, but he will do it again. Not to me though.

Saying affairs happen because cheaters are unhappy and don't love their spouses is too simplistic. Yes, of course that may be the case with some people but not all.

@Sunshineandflipflops sorry it didn’t work out for you, wishing you all the best for a bright future. X

"If you love someone enough and you’re happy, you don’t cheat"

This is an awfully simplistic view. I think people can be happy in a relationship but not happy in themselves and it often is this internal lack that drives an affair, not necessarily a lack in the relationship. Basic psychology shows that insecure people, who lack a true sense of there own self worth, can do fucking stupid things. The ego boost of attention from another person (usually one who is objectively far less attractive than their spouse) can cause a temporary high....but it always comes crashing down, because, however much they try to deny it to themselves, they know its wrong and that simply feeds their own self loathing. Affairs are totally wrong and destructive but it really isn't as simple as "if you love your spouse you won't" You have to love yourself too. That is not to say of course, that some people who have affairs aren't simply just selfish, entitled wankers...but I don't think it is black and white.

For your own sake Op you need to do your utmost to move on from this.
The other woman has ‘won’ because she is living in your head rent free..
She may be an uncaring Jezebel or she may be someone who found sex and companionship in the arms of another man ( albeit a married man). These things are often very complicated.
You have chosen to stay with your dh and therefore if you want this marriage to survive you have to put the OW out of your head and focus on salvaging what is left of your marriage.
Your marriage appeared to be a happy one , if
this is the case I would be concerned that your dh would cheat again. If he cheated in an otherwise happy marriage what would stop him cheating again? These are some of the things that you have to discuss in detail if you both want the marriage to survive .

Your anger towards the ow is deflecting the fault off your husband at the moment.

You will become so wrapped up in this pain with her that you will not see when he becomes involved with someone else, which now will always be a possibility.

I've seen it so many times whereby the betrayed is still recovering from one scenario and they are keeping tabs on one particular ow that they don't see the warning signals from another affair cropping up.

He's a cheat and I'm sorry but once they demolish their own boundaries for protecting the marriage, there is always a chance they will do it again. I would say the chances of it happening again go up.

For all the women who are currently trying to come to terms with betrayal, none of them really know if they are still behaving dishonestly, to live with a known liar is extremely hard.

Affairs are so different, this was not a drunken fumble after the clubs closed, a one off. An affair is a continued, pre meditated, thought out lie, a continuing lie, whilst at the side of their partner.

As a pp said, laying in bed with someone every night who is decieving you every day for weeks/months/years takes a certain kind of person.
I would want that person as far away as possible and I certainly wouldn't want to give them access to my body.

My body is not for comparison, it is reserved for only the nicest of people who are kind, respectful and loyal to me. You break that loyalty then you are denied any view of my vunerability.

Sometimes in recovering relationships, although the betrayed partner may still want intimacy, their mind and body does not allow it, natures way of protecting you from an enemy.

Getting the mind and body to do things it does not want to do is very hard. Op your mind and body are now at odds because you are trying to trust a known enemy who purposely hurt you.

You know she is an enemy but you are still trying to figure out whether he is.

She hasn’t got away with it Scot free though- her husband divorced her. Your husband is the one who could be said to have got away with it - he’s lost nothing.. She might be all bravado on social media, but let’s face it, 75% of what you see on social media is glammed up and reality is very different. And believe me the whole station will know. They are both low life cheats - him and her. Concentrate on your own life and moving it forward. Block the “background” and unimportant things.

The OW was in the wrong as was your DH. She is a nasty, sneaky, deceitful rat (as is your DH) and yes, I would be commenting on her SM posts to let people know what she's done. I don't care if people see that as right or wrong, it's what I'd do. What kind of person has an affair and cheats on their other half or has an affair with an attached person?

@Sofacouchboredom
If someone cheats when they are in a happy relationship that's far, far worse in my opinion.

The feeling of being with the long term partner usually can’t be beaten, even by the cheater, which is why most cheaters would rather lose the affair partner than their long term partner.

There are also other things at play like huge changes in a persons life occuring if they left the long term partner, moving house, possibly only seeing the kids at the weekends, not enough money etc.
All things are not equal when it comes to choosing between the long term partner and affair partner.

@TyrannosaurusRegina what poor advice. Why would anyone attention seek and air their filthy laundry in public like this. Does the OP need pity or revenge, or would it be better to be dignified, classy and not drop down to their poor standards of behaviour? If you was reading a post like that on social media, would you even care? Its pretty nasty and just makes the poster look bitter and desperate. Better to cut her out of her mind full stop. Yes she might be up there with Putin, but unless she forced fireman, I am pretty sure he was a willing participant over a long period.
I get all the hand wringing excusing on here ' they cant help themselves, not happy about themselves, but still sooo happy in the marriage. I call bullshit. I get that rejection is hard but most people dont drop their pants when they are having problems with their kids/ jobs/ self esteem. Sorry to be harsh but very few marriages survive long term after an affair. They might trundle on, have a bit of hysterical bonding, but sadly damage is done. Most wait until kids get older and then get out.