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.

@Pickle991 You are so right. I am still all over the place emotionally and just can’t get my head around it. I was so so sure he wasn’t the type. Turns out apparently every man is “the type” given the right circumstances. He now says he can’t understand what he ever saw in her, has no residual feelings for her, and would never consider being with her even if I left. Which I might. I’m sooo undecided. I change my mind about what I want to do daily, hourly even. Everything is still triggering. I’m all over the place. I’ve decided I’m in no hurry to make a decision. I can leave at any time for any (or no) reason. I have all the power now. He knows this. So I’m just biding my time and seeing how things go. But this is so so shit and so far from what I thought my life would be.

And I feel like if I do ultimately decide to leave down the track I’ll feel like I gave it a good go, didn’t rush into anything in the heat of the moment, it was a measured proportionate response. And there will be some comfort in that.

@NotTheMrMenAgain I’m really glad to hear you’re now in a loving healthy relationship! It does give me a bit of comfort knowing it’s possible and there’s a life beyond because it’s so hard to see when you’re in the middle of it.

he basically said he can’t erase the feelings he has for me and DC, not us ‘generally’, so the choice in regards to her isn’t straightforward, but I get the impression had he met her at a different time in life it probably would have been the thing for him. So that makes me feel like second choice but then he says he’s choosing to recommit and do the work and prove he can be who I deserve, so I’m not second choice, I’m the first choice because that’s what he’s choosing. Confusing, to say the least!

when I hit the roof after finding out he said I was surprised I cared so much (admittedly a lot of our relationship had become ‘functional’, and intimacy lacking but after a long time you kind of settle into it thinking it’s normal)

I think maybe years of an unhealthy relationship thinking it’s normal has warped my view of things. I’m looking into getting therapy for myself too just to work through how I can mentally move on regardless of what happens with the relationship.

thanks for your kind words and support. It means a lot.

^sorry said HE was surprised I cared so much…

So that makes me feel like second choice but then he says he’s choosing to recommit and do the work and prove he can be who I deserve, so I’m not second choice, I’m the first choice because that’s what he’s choosing. Confusing, to say the least!

this is going to be a really blunt question and I’m sorry, really sorry. Have you considered he is settling for you (and the children) because there is know future with the other woman ( perhaps she doesn’t want him) and if he can’t have her he may as well stay where he is.

Also, I just feel the need to say that the women here who’ve been through one affair with their husband have no idea what it means to go through multiple affairs with a husband and the experiences are so different that they don’t even meet in the middle. You really do have to start quantifying what has happened and if it helps perhaps you can even think to yourself - he has put my sexual health (my life) at risk not just with one woman but with 5 (that you know of). Personally I had only ever known my husband intimately but when it boiled down to it I’d actually been to bed with all of his sexual partners and everyone they’d ever slept with. This is the real nitty gritty of things.

@JellyBellyNelly no, I think she was very attached to him. So I don’t think it’s that.

and yes he was having unprotected sex with at least one. Which is shocking. Clearly he had no regard for her getting pregnant or catching something. I don’t know what he was thinking.

It could be that she couldn’t be with him for any amount of reasons (even though she was attached to him) and that they reached some kind of stalemate so he came home. Perhaps she also had to go home.

As for the unprotected sex aspect of things - do you really want to have been intimate with all of those people by proxy.

@JellyBellyNelly absolutely not, I got tested and thankfully clear but could so easily have been different and also she could have gotten pregnant. He says she was on birth control but had no proof, so who knows.
why would he take a risk like that, the mind boggles.

@JellyBellyNelly absolutely not, I got tested and thankfully clear but could so easily have been different and also she could have gotten pregnant. He says she was on birth control but had no proof, so who knows.
why would he take a risk like that, the mind boggles.