When do you finally throw in the towel after affair discovery?

[Pickle991]

Discovered DH has had multiple affairs throughout our 10 year marriage, 6 months ago. We have 3 young DC.

The latest lasted a year and was clearly emotional as well as physical. He ended it, but I had to tell him to, and we are trying to work on the marriage. He is in counselling.

My question is, how long do you carry on trying before you give up? We are still fighting non-stop and it’s been months. Details have emerged about the latest AP over time, he wasn’t entirely upfront from the outset, particularly in regards to how he felt about her.

I thought I would feel better making sure the OW is off the scene. I don’t. I thought there would be some improvement by now. He thinks we should be moving on but I can’t. I feel like he will have just gotten away with it. We’re not close physically or emotionally. I feel like I will never have definitive answers as to ‘why’ beyond the standard responses, I don’t even think he knows himself half the time. I don’t know if I still love him.

For those who have been through this, when do you throw in the towel? Was there a moment you knew it was definitely ‘over’, after the initial shock and fear wore off? Do you feel like trying to reconcile was just a fantasy? Sometimes I think it’s just not possible.

Your husband has been disrespecting and lying to you for years. He would be gone as soon as I found out if I were you. Why prolong the agony?

Your husband is a predator.
If he's had 5 women whilst you've been married, he has to be.
I've seen this behaviour in a hobby club. I've sat on sidelines and seen one chap have multiple "friends / affair partners.
His wife is none the wiser.
He's had 3 over the last 8 years that I'm aware of.
I wouldn't want to share my life with someone like that. There will always be a next one..
Get out soon. Get your ducks in a row.

'so all his behaviour says he wanted out, and now he’s saying he’s all in? It’s just messing with my head. What has fundamentally changed.'

No all of his behaviour said he wanted 'more' not 'out'. That's selfishness and entitlement right there. If he'd wanted out, he could have walked. He chose not to again and again.

You and your relationship fulfill 'most' of his needs but he has a brokenness 'a hole' that needs more. Until he's seriously worked on that, and how to fill it himself, he will be an unsafe partner for you.

Imho the ramping up of his affairs seems to me like an addict ramping up his highs. The emotional element of this one was giving him more of a dopamine hit than his previous ones. He has deceived you for most of your relationship it would seem, that shows a level of selfishness, entitlement and compartmentalisation that would be hard to come back from but this isn't my deal breaker it's yours. The level of deceit is mind boggling.

I know you want to see him as remorseful, but please be wary. These men are REALLY good at looking remorseful but true remorse really does mean working HARD, not just a bit of counselling.

My advice stands, quietly check your ducks are in a row for your children and you, read the books and watch the videos and watch his actions. Your final decision can wait and you have the right to walk away at any time.

I'm so sorry you're going through this, I know all to well how painful it is.

@Sofacouchboredom thats an interesting way of looking at it - I saw it as he did one thing, saw if he could ‘get away with it’, and then carried on until it got to a stage where it was impossible to hide anymore.
And then when I asked about the most recent it ALL came out. Even though I would have had no idea about the ones in the past. Like he was waiting to get caught. I don’t know. Who knows how their minds work.

If you stay for the kids what happens when they grow up and leave? You have given your life to your kids and you are left with a man who you can’t trust… your life is built on lies? Would you want your child to stay with a similar person in this situation? He isn’t showing he wants you he just wants it to go away. If he wants your marriage to work he needs to act… set up his own counselling to understand why he does this, True remorse and responsibility for HIS actions. I’m not in your situation but unless my dh was doing a lot of work off his own instigating then It would be over

@Lollypop701 yes he is in counselling, whether it will achieve anything is another matter

A wise colleague said to me at the time not to rush into making any decisions - it could take a year or 18 months. And it did. We worked hard with counselling to start and moved house, made great strides. But 18 months in, I started to feel that we were just papering over the cracks. To me, I feel fake that two years went well, and now I want to split - like it is unreasonable or not justifiable. But, we have a poor physical relationship and although I do trust him in terms of fidelity, I can't trust his integrity or honesty. I bitterly regret not finishing at the time as it would feel more "valid" and regret moving to our dream home which I now have to lose rather than still being in my smaller, manageable home :(

Also, I should add that my DH had a burner phone which i found quite by accident - so he can be as transparent as he likes on his actual phone, but may well have another!

My EXH was very open with his phone despite having multiple affairs. He also wanted me to move on. We tried joint counselling. I stayed because I still loved him. I'm pretty sure that he didn't have any more affairs but after a few years once the children were a little older I just realised that I would never be able to trust him again. I left. A few years single and now with the absolute love of my life. Never thought I'd trust again but he makes me feel so secure and loved. My children are now seeing a happy mum and what a healthy relationship should look like. I'm glad he cheated in many ways. It hurt so viscerally at the time but what doesn't kill you etc...
I'd also be getting the counselling for yourself. It's a waste of money on him and you deserve so much better xx

OP,
I didn't read all the posts but have been through this situation your DHs side and am now still married to DH and both much happier.

My personal view is that multiple affairs are a sign of an addiction issue: He is addicted to the attention and has not learned to moderate his needs and also get what he needs in honest ways.

He may "need" more attention from you (and "people" generally, this is known as Intimacy Addiction) than he is getting but is unable to express that need in a way you feel willing to hear it. In general, I think people having affairs are often rather needy combined with poor emotional recognition and regulation and poor communication skills.

I think the good news is that these things can be learned. The "bad" news is that this learning takes time and you are feeling burnt out and probably not feeling very generous towards him right now. The time it takes with concerted effort on his part (and later some effort on your part for you to help meet the needs he communicates to you) is about 3 to 5 years. Yes, that long!

The first 1-2 years of that time are really painful especially if he cannot relinquish contact. The real healing can start once he blocks her entirely, gets over the temporary addiction, learns to gradually forget her and stop comparing her to you and learns to fully validate your feelings and finally validate and forgive himself.

It is a long, up and down process and he will need to read up and reflect a lot. Take time off work to think about what he has done and why. The process happens in spurts, he will have realisations about how crap he has done at random moments.

That was my experience and I am a much healthier person for having been through this. In hindsight, our relationship was poor and dysfunctional for many years and we both needed a crisis to grow from it. The alternative was a low quality relationship spinning out many years more with a growing alienation and separation once the kids had grown up and no addressing of the issues at hand.

Some useful links for both of you:

Affair Recovery
https://www.youtube.com/c/AffairrecoveryLLC/videos

Relationship Wisdom
www.alturtle.com/archives/1350

Dr Pschymom
www.drpsychmom.com/

John Gottman

School of Life
https://www.youtube.com/c/theschooloflifetv/videos

If you decide to leave, of course everyone will understand: still, this is maybe a chance to learn about yourself and how you relate too. Have you been a perfect partner to him? I don't know the answer to that.

I know some people say: block them out, put up a firm boundary etc. But only you know what potential this person has. If you see continual progress, even if it's not perfection, then I feel it is worth it to keep trying.

To answer those who say he will do it again: yes he will, if he doesn't address his intimacy issues and other addictions and learn to live a more conscious life. I think it is quite easy to spot signs of real & persistent change, which happens when a person really wants it.

Op, this is spot on.

It also covers in a much better way of what I said about how one affair at a time can actually become two affairs at a time because the more they do it the more of a hit they need out of it.

The poster also covers how the men who do this don’t actually want to go anywhere with their antics are discovered and not even when one of my husbands women ( and yes, he did have me plus two other women at the same time) became pregnant did he want to leave home. In the end it took me a year to get him to leave and what unfolded after he did was the stuff novels are written about and films are made of. In fact I couldn’t blame people for not being able to take it in because a decade on me and my family still can’t really take a lot of it in. Not that we try to because we’re too busy living our new lives.

Someone might be able to explain the psychology of these men to you but to be honest I wouldn’t even go there with you because all it will do is keep in this situation way longer than is good for you and the children. It is only up to you though if you stay or leave.

www.alturtle.com/archives/1331

From:
Affairs and How I Approach the Topic:
(NB: Here, by The 'Lizard' he means our reptilian brain, the one that keeps us 'safe')

In this Affaired-against partner, their image of their past months, maybe of the past years, has been shattered. They know that. Their trust in their partner is gone, and I believe trust perhaps will return solidly in 3 to 5 years, and then only if their partner displays significant change.

Apologies won’t work. While the Affaired-against partner can generously, and perhaps virtuously “forgive,” at best that is a shallow event. Their lizard cannot forget, won’t believe the apology, and will start to plan for the future based on what it now knows. Twill sound something like, “Omigod, I just forgave a, perhaps well intentioned, apologizing liar. What the hell am I doing!”

This first process then will be about the profound shock (Lizard hates shocks). This situation is a betrayal (big surprises) at the Lizard level, all about discovering your partner lying (how much?) or withholding data (how much?). It doesn’t take an affair to kick this process off. Could be many things.
That knowledge that your partner can and has lied will never be forgotten.
I don’t think it wise to forget it.

The second process that kicks off I think emerges from the first. The Affaired-against partner’s Lizard wants to re-establish safety – to have Predictive Information (it just got a big surprise) and a Sense of Control (it just got, “what the hell is going on”, often called Chaos), thus it goes to work.

It wants to know how it got to be so surprised. It wants to know how it missed knowing what was going on in their partner. And now it wants to know all about what was/is going on in their partner that made their partner’s behavior (the affair?) logical and predictable.

This process will probably involve needing to build terrific communication skills in order to a) overcome whatever foolish communication failures led to the partner’s withholding and b) to facilitate the process of getting and assimilating all this data – past, present, future.

Yes - great post

He needs a specialist counselor. Someone that could perhaps even spot an underlying diagnosis of a personality disorder for instance.

I know you want to see him as remorseful, but please be wary. These men are REALLY good at looking remorseful but true remorse really does mean working HARD, not just a bit of counselling

Id go as far as to say most of what these people are about is a learned response to emotions and how to be, and how to say the right thing at the right time. In fact you never actually really know them because there unfortunately isn’t a real them in the true sense.

@Pickle991 I'm sorry, I can't imagine. I've been cheated on before and it's devastating. I can't imagine finding out about multiple other affairs. I'm sorry that you are going thru this, stay strong.

@Sunnytwobridges thank you I appreciate it, it’s one day at a time right now!

@Pickle991 I’m currently 3 months in from finding out about a 1 year emotional and physical affair and still trying with my marriage so can’t really answer your question, but can relate.

He ended things immediately when I found out (they were away together at the time) then came home and confessed (almost) all. More about the frequency and intensity came out later. He is deeply sorry and ashamed, has given me access to all accounts, accounts for all his time without me asking, takes full responsibility (although there were some issues in our marriage tbh), let’s me cry or scream at him and apologised repeatedly - is behaving in an “ideal” way given the situation, in short. I believe he loves me, regrets the affair, will never do it again etc. Yet despite all that I’m not sure if it’s enough.

I don’t know if I can ever get past the constant lying, deceit, betrayal. I don’t know if the visions of them together will ever leave me. I don’t know if I can live with this emotional roller coaster. I’m older than you I suspect (late 50s) and there’s a definite element of staying because I don’t want to be old, alone and poor.

Sorry that doesn’t answer your question but I think if he did it again or I found out he’d done it more than once in the past that would be it for me. But I always thought I wouldn’t tolerate any infidelity at all and here I am so who really knows…

I wonder OP why you're focusing so much on what's wrong with him, whether he will change. What about you? Why are you sticking with someone who has treated you so badly? Why aren't you worth more? What are you teaching your children?

5 affairs at least is too much, it really is. fwiw I have been with (not married to) a cheater, and I put up with all kinds of shit. But it just erodes all trust, and made me too anxious and ultimately made me feel too shit about myself. My children too deserved more - even if they weren't aware, they deserved a less preoccupied, depressed, anxious me. I deserved more, and sticking up for myself and moving on, made me respect myself more.

and fwiw, I am divorced (from a different man) and my children and I are flourishing out of the marriage. Being a single parent can be better for the woman and the children than being stuck in a dysfunctional marriage. Like you, I held onto a marriage, but it's one of my biggest regrets that I didn't get out sooner - for both my sake and my children's.

I wonder OP why you're focusing so much on what's wrong with him, whether he will change.

Im a name changer on this thread.

You make a fabulous point and any woman going forward with one of these men has to understand that it will be all about them forever more and if you fall down the psychology rabbit hole in order to move forward you’ll end up being eaten alive by it and it will still be all about them.

That said though - a person will do what they have to do no matter what is said to them and all that those around her can do is say (as was said to me) - when you decide to jump just take our hand and we’ll help you.

@MissedItByThisMuch thanks for sharing. It’s good he ended it straight away without having to be told, I fully believe my DH was waiting to see what I’d decided to do first before he ended with with the OW.

and yes in the same way he is behaving in the ‘ideal’ manner you describe, but I do get a sense he wants to move on from it in some way. The only other thing was he seemed to be pretty protective of the OW.

I do think 3 months in it’s all pretty fresh too so it would take time to understand how you really feel and what you ultimately want to do.

@JellyBellyNelly thank you, i do appreciate it. I think it’s mainly because I just can’t work out how I feel yet, and it’s hard to do when you feel like you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.
even if he is remorseful now, he was at a point where he was deeply emotionally involved with somebody else. He eventually admitted had he not been married to me, and our kids and our shared history, him and her would be together, he has strong feelings for her but he can’t erase or ignore what we have either so it isn’t as simple as that.

he is doing what he can to demonstrate he is recommitted to the marriage but I don’t know how long that will last if he had feelings for someone else, it seems a bit like rebuilding on very shaky ground, even if he were to never act on those feelings again.

OMG OP - you’re seriously onto a hiding too nothing with this man! You’re worth so, so much more. From what you’ve written he reminds me of my ex husband - a duplicitous, spineless weasel of a man, who lies convincingly as easily as drawing breath.

From your last post it sounds like he’s basically told you that he’s only with you because of the DC, and he can’t ignore his strong feelings for the other woman, but he can’t erase you and the DC either?! So, if he had the courage of his convictions he’d be with her? Absolutely fuck that for a game of soldiers.

it shouldn’t all be about him and his feelings/wants/needs. It should be about you. He’s repeatedly pissed all over your marriage, yet you’re still tying yourself up in knots trying to work out what his real feelings/intentions are. He’s a screwed up, damaged person. Only damaged people go on to damage/hurt/use other people the way he has you. But you can’t fix him - it’s not your job, and possibly not even possible. This isn’t your fault and he isn’t your responsibility.

What is your responsibility is to do what’s right for you. Of course, nobody can tell you what ‘right’ looks like for you personally. But for the love of the gods, don’t stay with a cheating, lying dickhead for the sake of the DC. It’ll do them no favours to grow up in an unhappy, distrustful household.

I found out about my ex’s affairs when several mistresses started sending cards and gifts to our house during lock down. When I found out about one affair it was literally game over after 16 years - there’s no way I could be in a relationship with no trust and I could never get past the disrespect and deceit. When I discovered the other affair a couple of weeks later it almost didn’t matter - the damage was already done and I’d already helped him find a flat and physically helped him move out (as I couldn’t get rid of him quickly enough).

Almost two years on at this end, ex is in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with one of his mistresses - she lives in London and we’re quite far away, so they don’t live together full time. I haven’t met her but she’s hugely kind to my teen DC - she moved to a larger but less fancy flat so DC has a bedroom when they visit for the weekend. I have no animosity towards her, I just feel a bit sorry that she doesn’t realise she can do much better than ex!
I have a wonderful fiancé who loves me like I’ve never been loved before and the feeling is mutual. I didn’t expect to find ‘the love of my life’ in my mid 40’s, but life is funny like that. Ex and I are amicable but I’ll never believe a word he tells me again. He’s not trustworthy - literally not worthy of my trust.

Anyhow, my point is that there is life after marriage to a cheater. It’s not easy - splitting up, divorce, practicalities with DC can be tricky at first. But to my mind it’s a million times easier than staying and flogging a dead horse. If the marriage is a shambling zombie of a marriage, the kindest thing is to take a metaphorical baseball bat and smash the brains out of it - put it out of it’s misery and bring it to an end. It’ll be less painful in the long run.

Obviously this is only my opinion and my experience. I’m sure there are lots of people who’ve worked and worked on it, cried their hearts out, flogged their guts out to try and make it work - and I suppose sometimes it does work and it’s worth it for them. But to be honest, someone who treats me so poorly and disrespects the family we built isn’t worth that much of my time, head space and emotional effort.