Can infidelity ever save a marriage?

[OnACloud]

This could be controversial and I’m absolutely not trying to make light of infidelity, I’m currently struggling through the aftermath myself.

Ive been in a faithful, mostly happy marriage for 27 years. Up until now. I discovered a few months ago that my DH was having an affair. I was devastated. Now he is out the other side and working hard to repair our marriage he is also devastated and totally ashamed.

I’m not going to go into the whys and wherefores of our situation except to say that our relationship had become mundane. We were bimbling along without giving each other much attention. The causes of his infidelity are deep rooted, however, I am fully aware that he is fully responsible and he made the wrong choices.

Coming to terms with everything is tough and I’m struggling but there are times when I wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t have hit absolute crisis point (his affair). Would we have continued drifting apart? If he’d have told me he thought we weren’t in love anymore (which I know he should have done) would it have been enough of an awakening to save our marriage? I’m not sure.

Anyone else understand what I’m trying to say here?

Yes, I understand what you're saying.

Years ago we had been drifting apart, taking each other for granted etc when my dp had a drunken one night stand. He too was very ashamed/upset with himself (he confessed to me).

I realised at the time it could've been either one of us because of how our relationship was at the time, and chose to forgive him and move on. For a long time our relationship was much better/closer.

It's not great now but that's nothing to do with what happened back then.

I'd say that a crisis can turn a person's life around, make them look closely at things that they have avoided thinking about, or decide to change things.
But for a crisis to save a marriage, you both have to like the other person enough to want to patch things up. I don't think that combination is too common.

Thanks for your honest replies. By even considering this idea I worry that I’m looking for excuses and justifications that aren’t valid. However, I do sometimes wonder if a heart to heart and a bit of effort would have been enough.

Both of your attitudes sound pretty promising to me - him working on it and feeling bad, you having a certain amount of understanding. Might as well see the positive in the crisis. I didn't stay with my exh but I still see it now as having had a positive effect on my life.
Do you feel like you have to stay together? I don't live with my partner and it's quite good to feel like we are both there only because we want to be there.

@OnACloud , I was your husband in this scenario if it helps to have other perspective.

Things had been rough for a long time, and we weren't treating each other with the love/care/respect we each deserved.

I very stupidly got close with a colleague, ending with me sleeping with him on a business trip. It was the biggest mistake of my life.

However, it was also the biggest wake up call. I either needed to leave my marriage or try and work to save it. I confessed to my husband (to be honest, am never sure if this was the best thing to do or not). We spent a lot of time unpicking what went wrong, why I chose to do what I did. At the end of the day, I chose to cheat and I take responsibility for it- and will forever be sorry for my complete idiocy. That said, we have evaluated our whole relationship as a result, and actively looked to change things (on both sides).

Communication wise we are much stronger now. Neither of us want to get back to that place- so if things are not working well for either of us, we are quick to talk it out.

It's taken a lot of effort, tears and humility. It's definitely not an easy path to stay, but I do think you can come out the other side a stronger couple

I found out 6 months ago my DP had been meeting a work colleague in a car park at ridiculous times for months, he says they only kissed but I'll never know the truth. I had also found flirty messages from her on his phone a few years before.
I went through some kind of hysterical bonding and we felt really close for a while, he has done all the right things and is incredibly sorry. I thought perhaps it was a good thing it happened as we would have broken up anyway.
I did think I could forgive him but 6 months down the line I am just starting to realise that I can't. I still think about it often, I have no respect for him and I am worth more.
I am making sure I am 100% certain of my decision before I impact my children's life and I wish it hadnt have happened as I do believe we could have just sat down and had a proper conversation.
The problem for me now is that what he has done will never have not happened and sadly I can't seem to get over it!

I would say yes at the stage of seriously considering cheating (I'm thinking of the premise of the Pina Colada song or Babooshka) as it makes you reevaluate how important your relationship.

I think if you are at the stage where you notice someone else and consider crossing the line, that should be the wake-up call.

The moment the line is crossed into affair territory, the marriage is dead.
You can lie to yourself that "our marriage is stronger" blah blah blah. But in reality when push comes to shove, he chose himself first. The injured party then spends the rest of their life waiting for another knife in the back. The marriage may carry on but that's because getting divorced is a fucking financial nightmare as well.

Look at how many lottery winners get divorced, most people put up with a lot but when money is no longer an issue, those people get out of these marriages pdq. I honestly believe that the divorce rate would be closer to 90% if being financially disadvantaged was taken out the equation.

You say you discovered the affair - he didn't come clean on his own accord. That tells me he didn't want it to end unfortunately.

I'm my experience relationships that recover following an affair are rare and complete ownership over decision making is needed.

Agree with this completely.

You are already well aware if something is wrong, if you don't take steps at that time to fix the relationship, I think it's because you don't really want too or because of the logistical and financial nightmare divorce brings.

But either way once the line is crossed I think usually there is too much damage done by those actions for a relationship to fully recover.

In the nicest possible way I think you are making excuses, understandably so, but I wonder if long term you might regret staying, can you ever trust him again? Can you commit fully to an intimate relationship? Or will there always be images of the other woman.

For me it's too much mental stress to go through.

I would never say that infidelity saved my marriage. If it survives (we're just 7 months in), it will be a result of the sheer effort and hard work we're both putting in. My husband fucked up massively but he's doing everything possible to repair the damage by addressing his issues in counselling and displaying massive changes in behaviour.

Like a pp, I am less hopeful than I was initially. It may just turn out to be a deal breaker for me, and he knows that. But I do believe people have the capacity to change, and I'm willing to at least give him that chance, if only for our child's sake.

I disagree that I will forever be waiting for him to do it again. I won't spend my life worrying about it. I can't control his behaviour but I do that I would divorce him in a second if there was even a whiff of this again. I'm not a passive victim.

I think you're in the bargaining stage of grief.

Thanks for the responses, I am reading all with interest and an open mind.

We have been through hysterical bonding but sadly at the moment I won’t allow him to touch me in a sexual way, it just brings images of them together into my head. Over the six month period they saw each other four times. They kissed each time, it went beyond kissing once and they didn’t have full sex. That was the last time they saw each other and it was in the early days. Sadly the damage was already done and I can’t escape the images.

My husband and I are over a year into rebuilding after infidelity and for us, it has saved our marriage. We had completely neglected our relationship and discovering the affair - although horrible - was the catalyst that forced us to evaluate our marriage and either fix it or walk away. We both wanted to fix it and we’ve worked very hard to make it happen.

It’s not an easy road, and ideally, we’d have started prioritising our relationship before this happened, but life doesn’t work like that.

I would recommend the Reddit community /asoneafterinfidelity for support and guidance - lots of people in similar situations.

I think any crisis can 'save' a marriage if saving it means going oh shit, this could all actually implode, I'd better pull my socks up.

I couldn’t have any respect for my husband if he found it easier to have sex with another person than to talk to me about our relationship.

Is that what he told you, OP? He's probably lying.

Thanks @booksandbrews I hope you get through it. We are both fully committed to fixing it but I have made it clear that it could take years with lots of ups and downs and no promises.
The whole thing actually made him really ill so we’ve got a huge journey ahead.

@Qbish believe me I have been obsessed with questioning and investigating so yes I am I sure.

My ex tried the 'we need to talk' after the affair came to light. A bit late for that, champ.

He's still lying as much as he can, and minimising as much as he can.

If you can live with that, then fine. But don't kid yourself that what he has told you is what happened.

I am not blindly believing everything he says at all. I have found a lot of information by other means.
You don’t know him, me or our situation. Yes he has been an incredibly selfish idiot and put himself before all else which I may or may not eventually forgive him for. Some people make massive mistakes, it doesn’t make them entirely evil.

Agreed. I think you're being very naive because you're so desperate to save this relationship. But it seems you're only desperate for him if it means you get to win him from someone else. Otherwise why wouldn't a heart to heart be enough?

All the information in the world that you can find "by other means" won't mean he isn't lying about having slept with her, and how many times.

Being in different continents makes it pretty easy to ascertain exactly when they saw each other.

I didn’t start this thread to seek opinion on lying and minimising. I know all about that. I have read obsessively about infidelity for the past two months.