Terrible row

[Highsmithfan]

This is my problem. For three years I have been trying to get over my husband’s affair. It happened during a horrible time when i was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have had a real problem forgetting what went on but as time has passed I have got better at controlling myself and he very much wants to put it all behind us. He says it was a horrible mistake and he never meant to leave me.
recently i found emails he had sent to OW during the affair where he asked her repeatedly to marry him and urged her to leave her husband and run off with him.
I never meant to let him know i have seen the emails but tonight I had too much wine and I asked him how he could have intended to leave me when I was ill and scared. He got absolutely furious. He says he's sick of me and leaving tomorrow and he is lying fully dressed on the sofa (i hid his car keys as he ‘s too drunk to drive).
i don’t know what to do. I can’t forgive this thing of forget it. I don’t feel like apologising but I can’t stand the animosity (although I have obvs caused it).
is it normal to still be upset 3 years post affair?

the counsellor is an absolute fuckwit, what a ridiculous and patently untrue thing to say, tragically true to male fantasy. I am cringing on his behalf.

You either need to forgive and forget or break up with him.

You cannot forgive him or forget about it (I don’t blame you), you have tried for 3 years to make it work and it just doesn’t.

Both of you are miserable and it’s time to admit that this relationship is over and dragging it out is making things more difficult.

@TheSilentPicnic that’s not actually the worst thing he said. In hindsight some of it is quite funny, but devastating at the time because we were so vulnerable and in pain and desperate for a solution.
the worst thing for me was when he asked to see me on my own and told me DH could not say he was not in love with OW because he was definitely still in love with her and anything between OW and DH was really not my business because it was THEIR relationship, and I should stop being jealous of OW. I was SO upset I ran out in tears.

This is the damaging facts about affairs - he took away from you the information you needed to make a choice about your marriage - to take him back or to divorce.

You now know the full picture of his lies. It's up to you what you want to do next.

JFC. You should report this man to whatever governing body he allegedly belongs to. That is a whole other level of fucked up and he should not be in practice. 💐

He is with you because she didn't want him. That's the cold reality based on what you have found. I hope you realise that you deserve much more than that. He did this to you while you needed him. He will not be a person you can rely on. So what's the point?

Absolutely shocking from that counsellor. Wtf.

are you sure he wasn’t one of your dps mates?

how appalling you should have reported him that is not professional and he sounds like he is a risk to vulnerable people when he should be a safety net!

Holy shit OP that therapist needs reporting! He sounds absolutely terrible.

I would not have taken him back if I had seen these emails at the time. I wish i had just left him then immediately.

You still can.

You made your decision based on false information and a brutally bad counsellor. Now you have NEW information, and now you know that the counsellors 'advice' was nothing short of a pile of shite, you can make a NEW decision to stay or go.

That counsellor should be struck off.

OP you don't have to stay. This sounds incredibly damaging for you.

I guess I feel like this will never be ok and I will always think about the affair. This morning he was sober and kind and hugged me and said sorry. He said it was all his fault and He had done all this to me and made me react in the way I do. Nothing is my fault.
I asked if he still loved OW and he said he never even thinks of her, has no contact with her, no idea what she’s doing. I think he’s very guilty about the cancer and has no answer or defence if i mention it because of course there is no defence - it just makes him and her awful people not Romeo and Juliet.
i don’t know what to do now. I just feel wiped out.

Don’t apologise but yes, let him go. He doesn’t deserve you loyalty. If OW had left her husband, he wouldn’t be laid out on your sofa right now, he’d be laid out on hers (or theirs).

Yep, saw this coming. Morning after and full of fake remorse on his part.

I can guarantee that if the OW told him she would have him back, he would be off like a shot.

I'd be filing for divorce.

Btw that counsellor is a fucking idiot.

The best thing to do right now, if you don’t know what to do, is to do nothing. Take stock and consider counselling.

Re the counsellor, I see Paul Kaye talking bollocks in After Life.
Seriously, please report him to his professional body, OP

And please see your worth and dump your lying shit of a husband.

All the best to you.

The problem is now he's sober he has a clear idea about the repercussions of you finding the emails. He's into damage control by being loving and kind.

Your emotions and the future of your marriage are extremely difficult to navigate right now. You need time and space to think what's important to you and if you can trust him in the future. And part of that trust is how he engages with you in an honest and frank discussion about his affair without anger, self- pity or bullying.

If he can't sit with you to have a rational, civil and honest conversation about his affair and the emails you found out, he's just protecting himself and you don't matter to him.

I feel for you.

Op you didn’t respond to why yoire trying to cling on to this marriage like this. Maybe you didn’t see the question, but maybe you don’t know?

You know he’s lying to you, you don’t go from loving someone, wanting to marry them to never thinking of them again so fast. But he’s trying not to making it worse again for you

I think examining why you’re staying is key here. I also think there are nuances to this, this affair started before the cancer diagnosis. So what effectively happened is he didn’t stop it due to the diagnosis. He was already looking to exit the marriage, it was clearly an exit affair .

is he getting angry as he feels the cancer is being weaponised against him? It does read like the two are intrinsically linked for you, where as he started this before rhe diagnosis and was not tp know what would happen. So addressing why it started when he thought you were healthy and why he was clearly trying to exit the marriage at that stage is important.

does that make sense? He didn’t start this affair as you had cancer. He started it for another reason and before. He was already having an affair when you were diagnosed. So something was broken at that stage. Understanding that is key

however it seems he is now in a position he just lies to you and says what he thinks you want to hear and he is trying to stop the cancer being linked to it., but obviously failing. So he is not being heard. And although this marriage is already over, if it wasn’t. This would end it. As both of you are deeply unhappy. You lash out. He lies and fakes it. It is a vicarious circle that unless addressed is going to cause much more pain before you are forced to split as neither of you can live like this, him lying and pretending, and you lashing out.

@Overgrowngrasslady you are right! I have never realised this. I guess because when i was diagnosed was v early on in the affair and the two things just felt entwined for me. I was v upset that he was leading a double life all through my treatment and I had no idea that i was being deceived. It felt so cruel to me in hindsight. But i guess your explanation tallies with him entirely ignoring my illness.
the emails reveal that OW was much more lukewarm than him. He has to keep reminding her about his proposal and at times complains that she keeps disappearing and going out of contact and choosing to spend time with her family over him. She even tells him off for disturbing her odd weekends without her family with messages and invites pressuring her to see him. He just comes over like a lovesick boy - lots of stuff about destined to be together and loving at first meeting and hearts entwining. Mid life crisis type stuff.

I don’t know why I’m clinging on. He’s all I have ever had really. I thought we had a nice life together. I don’t know why he decided to have an affair. There was no reason I could see except he had the opportunity maybe and she paid him more attention than his boring old wife. And she was new and exciting.
And when he said he wanted to get over it all and move on together I thought I could try and do that.

Oh OP, I really think it's time you let each other go. Staying together is just painful now for both of you, surely?

When you were seriously ill, he carried on his affair, planning to leave you as soon as possible. Now I'm no fan of monogamy. But marriage is a partnership, it's supposed to be a team. When one person is down, the other steps up.

The most successful marriages I know - both monogamous and open - work because the team comes first. Each person is their spouse's biggest supporter and cheerleader.

When the chips were down and he should have been moving heaven and earth for you, he was indulging in a schoolboy dreamy-weamy love affair, star-crossed lovers steaming pile of bullshit. And it's very clear that he wanted to leave - it was only when he realised he didn't have a soft landing place that he claimed to have wanted to stay all along.

This man will never be the supportive, loving husband you deserve.

Op your explanation makes sense.

are you sure he was ignoring the illness or he just couldn’t cope with it mentally because he also knew he was trying ro leave.

It does sound like an exit affair. I understand why they are linked for you, but it’s important to remember it started before that and for him they were not.it does read like he was unhappy in the marriage already.

if you want this marriage to continue, both of you. As much as he’s behaved badly you need to learn to listen to each other again and to be honest with each other and feel you are both being heard.

all this lying and anger has to be managed, dealt with. I think you need to sit down and talk to each other, without booze, just talk. I’d also Advise trying to keep the cancer out of this right now. But focus on what made the affair start, what ge felt was missing, what he would like to change in the marriage how he can communicate his feelings more, and you need to say what you want from him, from the marriage, how you need to communicate . No recriminations, no guilt trip, you’ve both done that. Now it’s time to examine the root cause of what went wrong, and look at where you are now and if the situation can be improved

Just out of curiosity, how did you end up with that particular counselor? He sounds like he's either an MRA or an evangelical. By any chance did your H (not so 'D') 'happen' to find him or a friend of his recommended him? Was it through a church or a 'surrendered wife' type of friend?

At any rate, I think you need to realize that due to that quack your H has been able to rationalize and justify the affair, his behaviour afterwards, AND that you need to STFU about your perfectly normal anger, sorrow, and need to discuss it. Your H is NEVER going to walk himself back to accepting 100% guilt for his infidelity and his abhorrent behavior during your cancer crisis.

As far as 'not being able to discuss' your cancer, that's terrible!! Of course you need to talk about it! My DH was treated for cancer last year and we have discussed his treatment, his feelings, his journey more times than I can count. Because he NEEDS to keep talking about it until it's all 'put away' in his head. That's a big part of the healing process. So I will keep listening, because that is one of the few things I can do for him as a cancer survivor.

Honestly, find yourself a real counselor. One you can talk to openly and honestly. Because I think you need to realize that that man is NOT the 'only' thing you have. You have YOU. And there is a big world out there where you can find people to care about you and support you. Right now you are living in such turmoil. You deserve (and need) peace and calm and you'll NEVER have it with that man. And if you're worried about loneliness just at first before you get your feet under you, remember that it's better to be alone than to be wishing you were.

@AcrossthePond55 actually the counsellor was one of three recommended by a friend’s therapist. DH chose him because he was the only man among the 3. He was an older gentleman and yes he was religious which we discovered when we went to his consulting room and it had crosses and pictures of Jesus on the walls. But he never mentioned religion at all. DH still thinks he was a good thing but I thought he was awful. He was just more sympathetic to DH than me.

The cancer has made all this v toxic. I understand that i was diagnosed AFTER DH affair started (just) but i am still astounded that he didn’t stop his affair when i told him I had bc. What had I done to make him dislike me so much - really I can’t think of anything. During the therapy he said i worked too much and made him feel like i had no time for him. But i just worked a normal amount and we never had rows or anything.