Sex after affair discovery

[dumpling12]

DH and I are both mid forties, been together 20 years.

Just under a year ago I found out he’d was seeing a woman ten years younger and had been for over a year. Full on emotional and physical affair. He’d become distant, moody and I found out after a bit of digging.

We ultimately decided to stay together for DCs. I wouldn’t say it has been easy, in fact it’s been total hell at times. For the most part things are at a point of relative stability.

My reason for posting today is that one of the main issues we have right now is around sex. I know some couples go through a ‘hysterical bonding’ phase. Well, we never had that. We’ve tried to have sex a couple of times since D-day, hardly at all, I found it too traumatic. DH didn’t seem too interested either and hasn’t pushed it. I’m obviously feeling horrible, comparing myself to OW. After a lot of pressing and arguing he admitted she was more his physical type and we’re not alike. I just don’t feel like he’s interested in me in that way at all.

It’s kind of the elephant in the room. I worry if we don’t get this back on track he will have another affair. He says he won’t but I still worry. He just doesn’t seem interested in regaining that intimacy and our sex life wasn’t great before to be honest.

Anyone else had any experience of this, or sex after an affair generally? Is it time to just call it a day if this can’t be recovered? I don’t even know if I still fancy him because I’m so hurt over the affair, or if I just feel the need to ‘fix’ this so he doesn’t go elsewhere, and I also just feel like he doesn’t desire me anymore which is making me so insecure.

TIA x

OP, I think the thing is… you’re pinning your hopes on this idea that things might get better because it’s “early days.” It’s not early days at all. Who said this? Your DH? A counselor? Just an idea you have? Right now, if his affair really was a year long, you’ve been trying to recover your relationship for as long as he had the affair. I don’t want to be as blunt as someone else who said you’re flogging a dead horse, but I do think you need to be honest with yourself about the progress you’ve made and whether YOU feel any better about the situation in a year. Do you? Do you feel more secure? Not just the sex, but do YOU feel more secure that he won’t have another affair, whether you have sex with him or not?

I think this is hard to hear and I hate to say it: you are insecure because you don’t have security. Anyone who felt the way you do, who felt that their husband might have another affair, who felt that if they didn’t get their “sexual relationship back on track” it would have an effect on him having another affair, doesn’t have the security you crave. You want the type of security you get from knowing that someone isn’t going to have an affair even if you are, God forbid, suffering from an illness and cannot have sex for a full year or even two (not uncommon with some severe birth injuries or hysterectomy complications, unfortunately), or if you were to gain a severe amount of weight for some reason. And you don’t feel that security. You’d also like the sexual security of knowing you’re with someone who wants you right now, as you are, and WANTS to initiate sex with you, and feels you are enough, and you don’t feel you have that security either.

I don’t know if a relationship can survive without those things, OP. Should you really have to go without them? Because I don’t believe, in the long run, that your children’s benefit outweighs what you’ll have given up. And you may find in a short while that the children are living in a toxic household, unfortunately, when you start to resent DH for denying you that security.

@5YearsLeft a lot of what I’ve read said it takes between 2 - 5 years to recover from an affair but there isn’t much about sex after an affair other than hysterical bonding, which isn’t my experience.

I don’t necessarily think he will cheat again (I can’t be sure!) but I think that’s more out of fear of what he might lose rather than lack of desire to pursue something elsewhere if that makes sense? I mean he clearly desired someone else before so no reason why he wouldn’t again, and be tempted to act. I still think he desires the OW and misses her though he denies it.

Because of the lack of sex and the fact he physically was attracted to someone very different to me, part of me does think if it’s can’t be resolved some of the underlying problems will subsist and we haven’t really fixed our relationship.

You’d also like the sexual security of knowing you’re with someone who wants you right now, as you are, and WANTS to initiate sex with you, and feels you are enough, and you don’t feel you have that security either.

id agree with you if that’s what it was like before the affair, but they rarely had sex before it and neither cared. So the sexual attraction has worn off long before the affair. In this it’s not going to ever be something it has not been for a very long time.

they have also agreed it’s a marriage of convenience. They are together only for the kids. The op doesn’t desire him at all. She just thinks she needs to have swd to keep him.

She just thinks she needs to have sex to keep him

which I will add is illogical as they are together only for the kids. He’d be gone otherwise.

It’s a concern but not the only reason.
I’d like to recover that aspect but I find it hard to shut out thoughts of the OW and feeling that he isn’t as attracted to me.

She was physically very different in what way? Just younger? God I hope not. Shit

Yes 10 years younger, different hair colour, body type. I have tried so hard not to fixate on her as I suppose she could have been anyone as it was him who decided to cheat but she is very attractive. My stomach just dropped when I found out who she was, just made me feel terrible. I’m not in bad shape but it was a huge knock to my self esteem. The one upside of it all being I imagine she has moved on by now and isn’t holding out hope / trying to restart anything with DH if she has plenty of other options! 😕

I worry if we don’t get this back on track he will have another affair.

So you only want to have sex with him so he doesn’t have sex with anyone else?

That’s no way to live!

What if you’re unwell or on your period?
Does that means he gets to go and have another affair because you’re out of action for a week or 2?

As females we usually need to feel secure to feel aroused and want to have sex with someone - you are not there yet.

It’s up to DH to keep proving to you that he had changed and he is trustworthy.

It may takes days or months or maybe even longer.

But you cannot rush it and his behaviour has caused this and he should wait for as long as it takes.
You should not feel guilty at all because he caused this so he has to suffer the consequences.

He is very lucky that you have taken him back - don’t forget that.

What a car crash all this is, with outstanding amounts of hurt and disrespect from him.

No one really knows his reasons for staying, children, finances, not actually wanting the ow for the rest of his life. I think men can separate these feelings and actions outside of a marriage with not real intentions of ever wanting their lives to change.

And I do think many ow can be as deluded as wives for thinking love and romance is the be all and end all of all relationships. Men think differently., they are more practical and pragmatic.
He has hurt you and is continuing to hurt you with comparisons of her, he does sound a mixed up soul who is feeling pretty sorry for himself. How fucking dare he say that to you in reconcilliation.

Why has he not left you ? have you asked him this question ?

You will never know if he is still seeing her or if he start seeing someone else, you will never have peace. You weigh up now what you need, for some it is very hard financially to start again (although there are many middle class, parent inheriting, good education and with good resouces and helpful families that think it's so easy on MN)

Real life is not like that for many and I don't envy your situation but I hope your resources are good.
This man is who he is now, someone who no longer feels like yours, someone who has been disloyal to you and your children, someone who is not your friend and does not have your best interests at heart.

As for sex you could take some drugs put a bag over his head and pretend your shagging someone else if it helps (and I'm not joking there).
You sound too much of a person of morals not to be digusted and repulsed by him.

You have lost respect for him, stop thinking what you can do to fix things, he can't or won't and doesn't deserve it even if he could.

Leave

No kick the fucker out.

It’s a concern but not the only reason.I’d like to recover that aspect but I find it hard to shut out thoughts of the OW and feeling that he isn’t as attracted to me

ok, I was only going by what you wrote in your op. You say you’d like to recover this aspect, but you weren’t bothered before the affair. And do you know if he wants to recover it? I think understanding the reality of why he has stayed is key here.

My exhusband had an affair ( she was 17 ,he was 32). He denied it for a long time. I thought our marriage was happy because I didn't know what a truly happy marriage felt like until I married my second husband. There is nothing more lonely than being in a room with a man who doesn't truly want to be there. It is far less lonely to be alone. I darent sit next to him because I knew he would immediately get up and go to the loo/ make a cup of tea/anything to avoid being near me. He drank too much,spent money we didn't have and stayed out late with people from work....she was one of them. He didn't see me as an attractive woman. We were just pretending. I thought was what marriage was. It absolutely isn't. I had years on my own before I met my second husband. The years alone were far better than the first marriage. You only get one life Op. Don't waste it. Read Deborah James new book if you need to give yourself a kick up the bum.

OP, it hurts to read your posts.

Please, don't allow this.

It will destroy you, eventually.

That bastard of a man. My heart breaks for you.

My mother stayed in very similar circumstances, it destroyed her and it was painful to watch. I know you think you're doing the right thing but you really need to think about your own happiness. Life may be short but it can also be bloody long when you're miserable. No-one deserves that.

Staying with him will do your children more harm than good and they will probably lose respect for you over time either when they find out about affair or just by watching all of your self esteem get eroded by this man.

Your marriage was on the rocks before the affair. You were not having frequent sex and it must have been a big part of why he went looking elsewhere.

The mental and physical strain you are taking is too much - it is OK to walk away from your marriage at this point. You are guilty of nothing and honestly, you will only regret staying.

I stayed when I should have left. Many painful years trying to forgive and to feel good again. All for nothing because he did it again. The worst pain was feeling so ashamed of myself for staying and trying.. when I knew the whole time I should end it. And after the second discovery I was only angry at myself. Why hadn't I ended it sooner and moved on with my life. I could have met someone else.

I worry if we don’t get this back on track he will have another affair. He says he won’t but I still worry. He just doesn’t seem interested in regaining that intimacy and our sex life wasn’t great before to be honest.

Why are you even still with him? Is it JUST for the DC? If it is, you need to walk away now. Doing it for the kids is no way to live. The kids will grow up eventually and they will move out. Then what? Life is too short to be miserable with someone. If one of your kid's partners cheated on them in the future, would you want them to stay?

After an affair, you won't be able to go back to how things were. There's always going to be doubt in your mind. You're also trying way too hard to keep him interested, when it should be HIM trying to pull out all the stops to make you stay.

Honestly, I doubt he's ended the affair.

Staying together for the kids never works out in the long term. You deserve better. I would leave him.
Find someone who wants you and will make you happy. Don't spend any more time trying to 'fix' something that will never be as it once was.
People change over time, it's time to move on and put yourself first.

@Annabananna1 I’m sorry you’ve been through this. It’s hard to imagine with all the begging and apologising they would do it again, but it is a concern.
and yes the lack of sex was a factor but he didn’t raise it as a issue, or try to work with me then to fix it. I didn’t think it was too much of a problem and we were ok with the status quo.
how wrong I was!

and DC are a large factor in staying together but I do feel on the whole we work well as a team and have been together so long. I have lost a lot of respect and am deeply hurt by what he’s done though of course so working out how I feel about him is difficult. I feel like he’s a different person now a lot of the time.

This is such a sad post

you know that there will be men out there that will desire you the way you deserve ? Really really

I don’t think stability for the kids overrides your happiness and not feeling like second best all the
time ?

And you seem to believe him @affor

As much as wives are lied to and decieved so are ow. This man could be on to his next conquest, siting his wife and guilt as the reason for leaving you behind heartbroken. He got to a year with you, understandably you would want more, a commitment, the next stage of love some indication you have not been used.
That's the time they get rid and move on, not with their wives, but with a new source that doesn't ask for demands, just gives him lots of lovely sex and attention without too much effort on his part.

This happened to my friend, she thought she had a good marriage with an honest man, till the signs of an affair. Their relationship broke down and she saw how he moved from one ow to the next, overlapping them, she saw because her eyes had been opened.
She realised he had probably been like that all his life but she was totally unaware, as his interest waned in his wife and his abilty to cover up his contempt that's when she saw him unmasked as he grew older.

He never wanted to break up but he continued to cheat and he left a trail of heartbroken ow in his wake, many remained friends and on tap some others bolted and had some self worth.
That's the thing with adulterers, you never really know if they are serial adulters and what wives discover is just the tip of the iceburg.

Liars are capable of anything.

@dumpling12 I don’t think there can really be a rule book for things like this. It doesn’t matter if you read 50 articles that say it takes five years for things to return to normal. The question is: do YOU want to give it five years? It sounds like you’re stuck in this strange in between land.

With respect to what @Wisteriaroundthedoor is saying, my point about you not having sexual security with your partner is very much about WHY you can’t have sex now. You didn’t have a very intimate relationship before the affair, Wisteria is correct, but now you’re afraid that may have played a part in your husband having an affair and you also don’t feel secure in him being attracted to you because of the comments he’s made about the OW… so I don’t know if this will be fixed in a year or five years or ever. You didn’t have that security before the affair is the point, or you would have been having sex regularly. If you had felt loved/wanted/like your husband thought you were the sexiest thing on two legs, you wouldn’t have been having sex so irregularly before the affair, and as a result, it wouldn’t be so hard to “believe” him now when he tells you that he wants to continue being sexually monogamous with you, for the rest of your lives.

I’m just afraid you’re going to always feel like this, always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, or blame yourself because you didn’t “restart” the sexual relationship, when really, this is about more than sex - this is about how he treated the intimate side of your relationship before the affair, him having an affair, and how committed he seems to getting the intimate side of it back on track. If you do want to repair the entire relationship, and ensure he either doesn’t have another affair or ends the relationship before ever doing that to you again, I really recommend counseling. If he’s willing to beg and apologize and do anything, then he should be willing to go to counseling to see if this can be saved. All issues are, at heart, communication issues (EXCEPT abuse) and this is, too, in some ways - the way he’s communicated with you about the OW, the way you’re unable to communicate with him about your fears surrounding sex - and I hope, if you really do want to continue the relationship, maybe counseling can help.

If counseling isn’t an option, then please think about what YOU want. As for whether he’ll have another affair, because you seem terrified of that, I’m truly sorry, OP - none of us can tell you. In the past, I’ve thought that if a man had an OW that offered him everything (said if he left his family, they could live together, get married, start a life - so in essence, he had a whole set-up with the OW just ready to walk into) and he still ended the affair, then he was less likely to have another affair. But I’ve recently seen, even that’s not the case. There is just no perfect predictor. The best way is to communicate, with the help of a counselor if you need to, that cheating again is not something the family unit will survive, if that’s what he wants - the survival of you four as a single family unit. That you will respect him more, as a person and a father, if he decides he can’t keep his commitments to you, if he ends the marriage at that point. It will be better for the kids, your long term communication as co-parents, and your self-esteem as a person. But ultimately, if he WANTS to cheat, and thinks he can get away with it, and has nothing to lose, you won’t stop him.

What a hard situation for you, it must have destroyed your confidence.

I'm sorry to say this so bluntly, but he doesn't want you. If he did, he wouldn't have had a year long affair.

Your sex life won't recover. Sex is about trust, respect, attraction. How can you have that after such a betrayal?

He probably told the OW that he loved her. He probably still feels like he does. They may even still be having an affair.

I know it's hard, but you need to wake up and smell the coffee. Your relationship is over. He doesn't want you. And deep down, I doubt you actually want him now either.

Doing it for the kids is pointless. They will know neither of you are happy and it will damage them knowing this. It's best for everyone's sakes, including theirs, that you both start being authentic and admit it's over and move on into happiness.

There's more out there for you. But you won't get it if you stay in your unhappy marriage.