I was unfaithful and am struggling to put it right

[Zanadoo]

Please don't tell me I'm a terrible person because I already am consumed 24 hours a day with hating myself.

I was unfaithful to my partner, biggest regret of my life and I am solely responsible. He has been devastated naturally and I'm trying very hard to do what's necessary to support him and try and repair the damage I've caused.

The is that I've got very severe PTSD. Very extreme. So him being justifiably angry and behaved in emotionally unpredictable ways is really triggering.

He was always very calm and gentle and now he's unpredictable and shouts sometimes and this is sending me into 10/10 panic mode with flashbacks and I completely can't cope with it.

He's always been empathetic but now he's rightfully angry and he's separated from me because he thinks I'm withholding comfort and reassurance from him when really I am just completely unable to cope.

Can anyone advise what I can do? I really want to support him on his rollercoaster of pain I've created but I feel frightened by loud noises or people getting upset with me

Are you talking to anyone? Because it seems like sabotaging your safe, calm relationship with cheating is interesting. You had an empathetic man and you chose to make him angry, because anger is the normal reaction to infidelity. Very predictable. Self-sabotage, maybe? You don;t deserve or seek out a happy, calm life?

What it boils down to is that your relationship is probably over. He has to be able to express his feelings. You can't cope when he does and shouldn't force yourself to experience PTSD symptoms. So it's incompatible. There may be no solution.

A very good relationship counsellor might be able to help both of you talk. But that's a long process and if he has to be angry, and you can't have that, you may have buggered it for good.

You know you’ve done an awful thing and it’s good that you’re taking some responsibility for it.

Do you know what caused your PTSD and have you had help with that? It seems like you need to fix yourself before you have the strength to support him too. It’s a tough road this post infidelity one.

Sorry, yes, I know I've done the worst thing you can do to someone and I understand I must have problems to fix in myself. There is nothing he did or didn't do. It was a me problem.

I got the PTSD from previous domestic abuse, hence I find this situation really hard and I don’t want him to think I'm not letting him express his feelings.

I've had reason to read a lot about Betrayal Trauma recently. It very much resembles PTSD in itself. His reactions are triggering you but from his point of view YOU are his trigger.
It may be kinder to both of you to split. Infidelity is terrible enough to recover from when both partners are usually mentally healthy but this is a far more toxic environment because of your background.
You already have insight into your own issues but do look up Betrayal Trauma specifically.

It may be kinder to both of you to split. Infidelity is terrible enough to recover from when both partners are usually mentally healthy but this is a far more toxic environment because of your background.

Remorse isn’t a magic wand and there’s no point in ruining your mental health because of guilt.

OP you haven't remotely done the worst thing you can do to a person. Flagellating yourself does no one any good.

You have done a very bad thing. Which you acknowledge. Do you know why? Because regardless of whether you and your OH work out, you need to know what happened.

He should be getting support from someone else right now and you need support too. It definitely would be easier to split up and let each other have some space

Cheating on someone isnt the worst you can do op, yes it sucks but literally every person I know has either cheated on someone or been cheated on in their lifetime. It doesn't mean every single one of those cheaters are terrible people.

Is it possible you can have some space from each other? You don’t tend to cheat if you’re 💯 happy imo.

You have done a bad thing everyone will agree with that but I don't think the anger is acceptable, it won't help your condition that does not make it OK,I've been cheated on and I've PTSD from childhood trauma so understand just how bad PTSD is,but getting angry with a woman is never acceptable in my opinion especially one that has PTSD

This.

My marriage broke up because of behaviour far, far worse than infidelity.

You don't owe it to him to be there for his outbursts if it mentally damages you.

You cannot change the past, it is done and you just have to stop beating yourself up everyday. I would be angry and am not surprised he is. It may be better to separate and see how you both feel in say three months.

Amd yet women who find themselves in this position are told to find their anger 🤷🏻‍♀️

Tbh, I think anger is understandable and acceptable in these circumstances. Anger is only an emotion after all and we are alle nestled to feel a full flange of emotions and not have them seltifled by another person. How that anger is expressed is more important.

Name calling and violence, threats and abuse are not acceptable but being angry is.

OP, I agree that you need time apart to both process what has happened. And you will have a lot of work and making up to do if your relationship stands any chance of survival. You also need to accept he may never get over it.

At the moment he is angry because he feels pushed into making a choice he never wanted to make because of your actions.

The impact of infidelity isn't lessened and his reaction isn't less acceptable because it is the woman who cheated.

For the sake of your mental health, please please consider splitting.

Chalk off the infidelity as an incident for now in your head and work on regaining some composure and peace in your life, some help with the ptsd

He has every right to be angry but you have every right to not be witness to it.

Have a chat. Tell him you can't make peace with what you've done and it's triggering your ptsd. I wouldn't even mention his anger as the last thing you want is him making things worse by getting even angrier. You don't need to deal with that.

Sorry you're going through this. I know people are quick to point fingers at someone who cheats, i think you are dealing with something most people aren't and deserve to just had a little peace and calm in your life more than anything.
Good luck x

You can leave.

You cheated to the calm, nice version of your DP and now because you feel guilty you are forcing yourself to pull the weight of the relationship with him being undertastadebly angry. Doesn't make sense.

Forgive yourself and if the relationship doesn't work leave. You are responsible for your acts not for your partner ones.

There are things that can't be fixed.

But I can't bear the thought of splitting up. To heal from these things you're supposed to be there and help the person with their feelings

Ideally, yes. But you can't because of your past trauma, so I think that it is probably better for you both to be apart.

Not every relationship is salvageable.

It sounds like he is dealing with his own trauma now (from you cheating) and the way he is processing and reacting to it is triggering your PTSD.

There are no winners here - time to end this and learn from your mistakes, grow, do better.

I’d also suspect if he is normally calm and empathetic and now he’s flying off the handle this relationship is dreadfully unhealthy for him too.

And it’s likely he wanted to leave but because of his kind nature he has felt obliged to not leave completely but he feels resentment at his choice .

That resentment will be growing even more if he feels you’re centring your own feelings when he’s displaying his anger.

My boyfriend is really nurturing and calm and if he began to lose his gentle nature as a result of something wrong I’d done to him , I’d feel it would be kinder all round to go our separate ways.

Is it still early days post discovery @Zanadoo?

I found out about 4 years ago that my husband had cheated on me and it was devastating and I suffered real trauma. There was a lot of anger and grief expressed and he was also traumatised and found the conflict hard to deal with. We are still together but if continues to be a work in progress.

If you feel you don’t want to split up and your husband is also willing to countenance working on things, then you need to find your own mental health support to assist you through the aftermath. Which will include arguments, raised voices from time to time and harsh comments but should never include violence. If you can’t handle the aftermath with support then as others have said the only option is to split. Your husband will not be able to move on from this with you if his own need to grieve and express his grief to you is not recognised and accepted.

Because his personality and the way he treats you has changed I would say the relationship is over, if he had continued being caring, understanding and forgiven you it might have survived.
You need to prepare yourself for divorce focus on that, don’t leave yourself in the guilt induced uncertainty.

@Katrinawaves post is well said, particularly Your husband will not be able to move on from this with you if his own need to grieve and express his grief to you is not recognised and accepted.

There is a thread on here which demonstrates the need for this to heal the relationship, I'll see if I can link it here

I will just try and answer one question at once as it's a bit overwhelming.

Why did I do it?

I'm unsure fully but these are the things I know.

I felt quite unworthy of being loved by my partner because he's so great so I felt a bit fatalistic because I assumed he'd not love me anyway

I found it very hard to picture a happy future because it's not my experience that things are happy

I haven't got a template inside for healthy relationships as the world has always been scary (I've never cheated before) so I think before this I kept a certain distance

I have many personal flaws and poor coping mechanisms designed for self defence that I've been working on

Myself and partner were long distance for a year and I was thrown together with someone else (I firmly believe there's no way I would have done it if this wasn't the case)

That person I cheated with (I see now but didn't see then) was an abuser, and I was susceptible to love bombing because I had low self esteem

I will sound like I'm lying but I didn't want to cheat and wasn't infatuated with the man, it was just a calamity of factors. These aren't excuses I'm trying to just be honest.

There was never a minute I didn't love and want my partner, which sounds again like a lie but it's the truth. I know I made bad choices and wish I could rewind but I can't.

I am fairly sure I also have PTSD from the cheating itself. Not just my own actions to harm someone this much (the person I love most) but also because the man I cheated with was an abuser.

He was very nice / couldn't be nicer at first and that feeling of being "loved" or cared for appealed to this needy part of me. That quite quickly gave way to a cycle of abuse.

I ended the affair quickly (weeks) but the abuse continued (stalking, threats, some violence) and because I had cheated I as the bad person and didn't tell anybody. I thought at the time I deserved it.

So when my partner first found out about it all, I was initially so relieved to be able to tell someone, but it was the most guilt and shame and regret I've ever experienced. He was devastated but had a lot of empathy too so it was a lot of crying but gentle communication.

I was able to work really well at first with everything and my partner wasn't angry, but I think I fell by the wayside and things went off track.

I started experiencing full throttle PTSD about two months later, with feelings of irritation night terrors, severe depression and at that point made it "all about me".

My partner was patient but as people have said, eventually got resentful because his feelings were being pushed aside, so he started getting angry at me. He said the selfishness of cheating was mirrored in the selfishness of recovery.

He said he understands I have PTSD but it doesn't mean he can sweep my cheating under the rug and that I have to get help for myself so I can do the necessary work and learn to allow him to process what he's feeling.

I was just hoping there's some practical method that I can let him do that without rocketing anxiety because I honestly want to be able to do what he needs.

I'm not getting any help, but I've come close to emailing a few therapists. I really don't want to split up. I really love him and just can't cope at all with that idea.

This is the problem here your co dependent on him and the healthy and right thing to do would be to let him go so he can heal and process his feelings but instead he probably feels guilty and feels that he has to stay because of your issues.
I don’t think your in the right frame of mind to have a relationship personally so much so you cheated.
It is best you let him go and focus on recovery so you can have a healthy relationship instead of overly relying on another person to make you feel better and ‘complete’
only you can do that for yourself.

He doesn't want to split up either