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

I think the best thing for you both is to split and for you to get therapy. I know that you don't want to split, but you need to be in a better frame of mind to help him or before having another relationship. It will take a long time for you to heal, I'm afraid there's no magic wand that can be waved to change that. And I don't think you can successfully heal in this relationship when some of your trauma stems from his pain, which he has every right to feel. It's a vicious circle.

You and your partner may not want to split. But the reality is that the relationship is becoming highly toxic with your actions in the past and both of your actions in the present.

I don't want to go to work everyday but I have to.
I don't want to reprehend my daughter when she does something wrong but I have to.

I did not want to split with my cheating partner but at the end was the better options looking back to those days.

Can you both go to therapy? Even if you don't want to split up for good, it seems like you both need space.

It doesn't seem like you're a serial cheater who just loves having more than one person on the go. You're obviously going through something bigger and I really don't think you would cheat again. It's deeper than cheating, so you should definitely speak to a therapist.

IME the couples I know who have stayed together after infidelity are normally couples who have:

Been together for years before (so evidence of long term faithfulness)

Cheating was an 'incident' in a much bigger problem, like a man I know who suffered bereavement (his DM died), had a breakdown and cheated on his wife on a night out. He since went to DR and is stable again. To me, it didn't seem like he had a 'cheating' problem, he was manic and needed treatment.

People who think they fucked up too. Example would be, you crush your partner's self esteem over a long time and they feel low and eventually cheat with someone that shows them interest. You look back and think actually I could've been a better partner too and the cheating is like a wake up/reset. These people genuinely seem the happiest tbh. I think this is rare though.

Anyway, it doesn't have to be over but you have to know why you did it, how you can make sure you don't do it again, what triggered these feelings etc.

I would never cheat on anybody ever again. If me and I seperate, I will stay alone for good. He can't be replaced.

Being on the other end of a cheating spouse can cause ptsd. It's traumatic what you have put him through. It sounds like he is triggering you and you are triggering him. Get yourself into therapy. Deal with your ptsd and your reasons for cheating. Do this not because you want to save the relationship but because you recognise your behaviour is destructive and needs to change.

He is in the midst of a grief cycle and anger is very much part of that. Saying that you don't have to tolerate being shouted at.

You cannot heal him or fix him. He needs to do that himself. You are the cause of his trauma. What you can do is make yourself a safe partner by dealing with your issues. He may not want you after but by becoming a safe partner you can have healthy relationships with or without him

I would never cheat on anybody ever again. If me and I seperate, I will stay alone for good. He can't be replaced

Talking in these absolutes doesn't help, it only amps up the drama and upset. You don't know if you'd cheat because you haven't yet understood or really taken responsibility for doing it before. Your explanation is all about being thrown into circumstances beyond your control as if someone else did it to you. This isn't me judging or blaming, just pointing out how you really do need therapy for this and the ptsd issues. And you need it before you can hope to rebuild a relationship with your DP. Saying it's a choice between being with him or being alone together is extreme and not very in touch with reality. With kindness, I think you both need time apart to heal and not exacerbate the problem.

*being along forever

To paraphrase your long post about why you cheated (and thank you for posting that) there are issues you have that caused you to be open to cheating. You haven't done the work to make sure you don't do it again. You made the aftermath about your trauma, not his.

All of which is completely understandable. Because you haven't done the work. You probably weren't ready for a relationship before you started with your partner. Therefore it caused issues. Ultimately it led to cheating and you can't process the cheating because you again, haven't done the work.

Stop focusing on the relationship. Doing the work is actually the important thing. Stop using your partner as your unpaid, untrained counsellor and find a paid, trained one. I'm fairly sure that the period of recovery will involve you not wrapping yourself up in the relationship to both distract from, and anesthetise you from, the feelings you need to go through to get better.

We've all been trained by life and Disney films to think love will find a way, love is all, love will conquer. It's simply a lie. When you have trauma, you need to be honest and work hard. Love isn't enough because you play out the trauma over and over. Which is exactly what you did. You may not want to split up. But you need a break to heal, do the work, and actually have something concrete rather than a feeling that you won't do the same again. Call a counsellor today.

Wether you want to split up or not I think the relationship is burnt.

The relationship can never go back to what it was before. Ever. You can't have that again.

Once one party has been unfaithful it opens doors to all kinds of feelings and accusations later down the line, suspicion and anger.

He can't comfort you, and you can't comfort him. You both need to find ways to move past it. It will never go away. Even if you don't talk about it he will always be thinking about it.

I was cheated on in a previous relationship very early on into it. I never forgot to truly moved past it. We stayed together but it was ruined. We pretended, I still thought about it all the time. I wanted it to work and we did try but at the end of the day I was staying for what I had hoped the relationship would be and what it was before his cheating. After a long and emotionally hard few years I realised I still thought about it, still felt hurt by it. Still was angry and had a lot of unresolved feelings around it. So I left.

You could limp along in this relationship where clearly your partner is now very very unhappy (and rightly so) and clearly you weren't fulfilled enough to stay faithful. But now you've dealt it the death blow, it might be better to put it out if it's misery and end it sooner rather than torturing you both for months first. I can't see the relationship recovering especially as you have no ability to communicate. What people want and what they are capable of are very different things and I you might both want to save the relationship but I don't think you can.

Any relationship you did salvage would be a shadow of the former one, you partner may be angry and resentful forever, I was intil I left and I'm not that person now. In fact with my new partner who has never cheated I'm constantly joyful and happy, the lack of resentment is refreshing and I'm eager to make him happy. I never felt like that towards my ex after what happened, every moment was tinged with what he had done, it would come into my mind at any moment that was supposed to be carefree or loving, any moment that was meant to be romantic or I looked into his eyes.

You can probably both be happier moving on from this apart.

be kind to him and let him go, stop making it all about yourself and your needs, let him heal and find someone else who would not do this to him.