After the affair

[Owlgirl1987]

Just wondered if anyone has been in the same situation as me where their partner / husband had an affair and you forgave them and stayed together ? If so how long did it take for tou to feel like you had got through the worst and was over it and didn't feel the need to ask them questions and question yourself and your worth ?

Oh I get every one of you on here x
Its fucking hard and horrendous to keep going when you know they have cheated.
It's my sunk conacclled things that keep me going.
I will NOT give him the fact our children will come home to two different houses.
I will not have my children choose between us for Christmas.
I Will keep my family together.
I grew up with two dysfunctional families.
I won't give him the reason to make my family like that
It's just that, I have put twenty four years into my family, his cheating will not break that up. If it's seen as weak so for it. I don't see it as that

And I want my family to be together.
When he was outed for cheating he didn't give a flying fuck about our children.
I was the one who comforted them, I was the one at home whilst he fucked off with her.
I get to know what's best for my children.
And it wasn't splitting up the house, their family home

I stayed but I haven’t forgiven. Now that might surprise you but I didn't believe I needed to forgive. I needed to accept that this had happened in our marriage and I needed to find some degree of belief that he would be the man he wanted to be, and be a safe partner for me but imho what he did was not something I could forgive. FWIW I don’t think he forgives himself either. So forgiveness to ME is overrated.

It took a good few years. I had a friend who went through a similar experience and split with her husband and we both healed in the allotted time frame 2-5 years. It got easier after 2, not so raw, by 5 we were both able to talk about our experiences without that sense of devastation. Time is a healer whether you stay or go.

Yes you will question and I can only talk for myself and say that demystifying the affair and unravelling the ‘secrets’ between them did help me. It doesn’t work for everyone I’m sure, but you’ll know what helps you process.

The most important thing when launching it to reconciliation is to be as sure as you can that your husband truly remorseful. Not guilty, ashamed and regretful. Those emotions get them stuck in the nasty shame cycle which leads to false reconciliation, further contact with AP, continued desire for validation and the flaws that led them to the affair will still be driving them.

Remorse is doing 100% to heal the marriage, full transparency, work to being a better person, introspective thinking as to why the affair happened and apportioning zero blame to the betrayed spouse. I’ve watched many many stories since my experiences and remorse is rare. Cheats willing to do this are described as unicorns and I get that. I truly do.

As for staying once you have what you believe is a remorseful partner your next hurdle is intense shame for staying. This almost crippled me. If you knew me irl you’d know I’m no wall flower or any other rude term used to describe women who stay on here, I’m happy, strong, independent but I truly valued my family unit above all and if I could hold it together with the man I loved, I intended to do that, for all the reasons @PeacefulPottering has beautifully put. I had to dig really deep to unpick what would make ME happiest, and I did. Once I’d really come to terms with what was important to me, the shame left and I worked hard to heal alongside him. Simply put it wasn’t a deal breaker over what I wanted for my happiness, so I adjusted. Don’t get me wrong, one more sign and he’s gone.

This is the part where you may decide that staying is not for you and that’s fine too. Infidelity is the worst thing I’d ever gone through really facing that the people we loved stole our personal agency and right to sexual consent is huge, really facing that head on, knowing that you’ve been betrayed by someone who was supposed to make you feel safe, it’s hell. But surviving and thriving however you do that is amazing.

I hope I’m not too controversial when I say I’m not a fan of Esther Perel. The stuff I read and watched tended towards a sense of blaming the marriage, and that if we meet someone’s needs we can fix it. I don’t agree with that at all (thankfully neither does my husband). I’m very much a proponent for the idea we cannot control outcomes by loving someone right amount of sex, right amount of validation, right amount of gifts, attention, romance etc etc . They need to love themselves and want fidelity for themselves. They need to want to retain their moral compass and be the person they want to be.

Cheating is on the cheat, not on the marriage.

But each to their own and I know some love her and she strikes a chord with them.

I’ve written more than I usually do, usually I’d just say go to Surviving Infidelity read and then post there. The views are more balanced and nuanced and the experienced of the moderators is second to none. If you haven’t got a copy of ‘how to help my spouse heal from my affair’ get one and affair recovery videos can be great too.

Knowledge is power in beating this by understanding affairs and what drives them, whatever your choice may be.

Good luck and a hug I know this is a hard hard path.

@Susieb2023 you could be me, seriously.
I haven’t forgiven either, I don’t think it’s forgivable. Acceptance took long enough, it took me a while to see that that was what I was struggling with in the earlier stages. I’m four and a bit years out now, don’t regret it at all.
I never felt shame for my decision to stay, oddly, but the mysogynistic crap around infidelity got into my head for a while and made me feel “less than” and a failure because my husband had cheated, until I could see that actually it was all on him, absolutely nothing to do with me and nothing would have made a difference, it wasn’t due to a shit marriage or unhappy home life or me. That’s what makes it so painful for all parties, the “Why? Why the fk did you have to do that?” and often the cheat can’t answer that either. Guilt/ shame regret kicks in first for cheats and can be the “woe is me” stuff that prevents real remorse happening. Guilt and regret are hard enough to face but really looking at and accepting why you did the shit you did is incredibly painful, sometimes they seem to want to hide on the guilt for ages to avoid having to accept the reality that they’re really not the person even they thought they were and need to put that right. The real remorse can kick in as they explore the ‘why’ and the penny drops that this is their circus and their monkeys, nobody else’s fault and they’re not a victim of circumstances or anything else for that matter, and that it’s their flaws and issues which went unchecked and caused immense pain to those they love.
Staying after infidelity is always a risk, trusting and loving always carry risks, in any kind if relationships, men and women will all declare that they would never, ever cheat. Until they do.
I’m a firm believer in that now, whatever anybody says about it.
There’s no shame in leaving or staying and both are very hard to do. There are no ‘winners’ after infidelity, none at all. Just some who make it to the other side less scarred than others.

@Thewookiemustgo & @Susieb2023

I was going to post but you have both summed up me and my situation exactly.

If you read my post properly, I was explicitly not shaming women who stay.

I hate the pat response that people who stay are "stronger" however. It's basically saying if you leave you're not as good, your relationship wasn't as deep - a bit like Marge Simpson telling Lisa "some women say you can't change a man - but those women are quitters!"

Both roads are hard, and neither is wrong or right. As someone who stayed for many years, I think I'm pretty qualified to comment.

The decision you make in the situation does not reflect on your strength of character.

The only weak ones are the cheats.

A sad story here. We weren't married, but I was in a LT relationship (think 5 years but not living together) in my early 20s when I found out my boyfriend cheated (maybe 2 years in). It took forever to get back to normal. And then a few years later I found out he had been cheating again - pretty much throughout the relationship. So I ended it.

I'm not saying this will happen with you, but it took years for me to get myself back: bearing in mind I was in the prime of my life, no kids, lots of friends, going out every other night, with lots of interest from other men on a day to day basis. Now I'm an "old woman", late 30s, weight gain, invisible, "boring" home life: I'm not sure I could "bounce back" in the same way again. I.e. back then I got through it by telling myself I was amazing (don't ask me why I didn't just break up with him - I was young and stupid): he didn't actually do anything to make me trust him again, other than lots of apologies, crying, letting me check his phone, paying for us to go out etc.

Now, I think that "story" (of self love) would be harder for me to swallow AND I would prefer to use the self love and worth as motivation to leave. Rather than, for example, continuing the "pick me, don't stray because I'm fabulous and those other women meant nothing/ can't compare to me" dance, or the "show me you love me and aren't cheating" dance.

Wow what an amazing post. You put this so beautifully. Betrayal is absolutely massive, I’ve been through a lot in Iife but cheating is abuse, its consequences on our mental wellbeing are massive. And yet we still feel shame! Whether we leave or stay, we take on a big weight on our shoulders.

To all the other posters also, my heart really goes out to you. Staying is really, really hard. Leaving is also hard. 2 years is awful because of the shock, but also in some ways easier as your husband will be at his most ‘good’. After 2 years I’d say is the real test, and after 5 years you will either hopefully be more secure, or gone. Don’t be caught up in cycle after cycle though.

One other thing that massively helped me was knowing the facts about my Exes affairs. He never told me much, but I contacted a few of the women directly. I did it politely and without expectation by text! It was humiliating. But surprisingly, perhaps because the women were also ‘fooled’ he lied to them, all but one were very respectful back and told me a little (not details), just said that my Ex had pushed to meet up, had said nothing about having a baby or a wife. They didn’t say how much they’d had sex etc but just knowing some of the realities was actually massively helpful. You will only find out a bit of the picture, ever, to be honest. I found masses of texts late at night on a phone bill by mistake and then one of the women told me he had a profile on the internet.

You have to stop ‘delving’ and wondering, otherwise you will drive yourself mad. BUT if you are going to stay I would strongly advise doing so knowing what happened, as a minimum before deciding what to do.

@Susieb2023 same position here and I totally agree with your views about there not necessarily being something wrong in the marriage- how many women on here are blindsided and Couldn't believe it- presumably they thought they were in a happy(ish) marriage. In some cases it's simply opportunity , greed and a poor moral compass at that point in time.

I haven't forgiven either or forgotten by the way. That doesn't mean to say I bring it up-I don't and it's 7 years now- it has changed things, I will never blindly trust someone again or make them the centre of my life to the exclusion of other things that matter.

@Thewookiemustgo I always agree with you too - it really isn't always as simple as you aren't putting out enough or are a nag or don't get on anymore.

In a way I think it would be easier to split when this happens and the relationship has obvious cracks or you have a non remorseful partner. In my case it all happened 10 years before I found out too and so of course for my H it was old news, but very new news to me!!

The idea we have to forgive is nuts- acceptance I think is the best you can hope for.

I’m actually reading a book on forgiveness at the moment, the take so far is that forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, my jury’s still out thus far with this book, but then I was always going to be a very tough nut to crack in this respect and I’ve not finished it yet.
Agree with you @Crikeyalmighty that if I’d thought I’d got little or nothing worth trying for (including him) then leaving would have been the obvious option. I don’t think it matters when you find out about infidelity, the feelings are raw and immediate on discovery, whether it happened ten minutes ago or ten years ago.

I don’t think we have to forgive. For me I didn’t think I had to anything ‘for’ my Ex including forgiveness. That doesn’t mean that I end up with anger forever, but not having the anger was something I chose to do after a while, without having to ‘forgive’ him. The actions of cheating are done. They caused harm. They are out there and we didn’t do it. Gaining a bit of understanding is helpful, but I don’t think forgiveness is a gift to us, it’s appeasement of them.

Hmm, a fair few months. During which time he gaslit me so much I ended up on medication and very unwell indeed- and then he left me for her.

I would never advocate risking this happening and I wish I had chucked him out the night I found out.

Esther P romanticises affairs - it's her business after all.

Hi thanks for your reply.
We are doing marriage counselling.
We have been doing it for about 2 - 3 months.
To start off with We were going every week and my husband had doubts that it would do anything to help and was quite against it, now he says it has helped and it feels like a safe space to open up and look at things differently.
We seemed to be making progress so we started going every 2-3 weeks, but the last couple of sessions have been hard as I am feeling like I am constantly comparing myself to the other woman.
It doesn't help that I knew the other woman as it was my husbands best friends partner.
Its hard to hear that your husband had a connection and loved someone else, so makes me question what is good about me and why he did what he did, what was he lacking from me.
Sometimes I want to sit and talk to him about how I am feeling, but I feel like it would just turn into an argument.
I have always lacked confidence and been very anxious and a over thinker, I am having individual counselling aswell, but need to find ways to overcome this anxiety and over thinking and feeling so negative, but feel like I am struggling.

Another one here who tried and it didn't work. I put it aside and trusted him despite everything and it turned out to have been a mistake. We stayed together 18 months after the first time. I've since really regretted not having ended it there. Good luck OP. Worth getting counselling just for you if you can.

I also said that u would never stand by a cheater and hated cheaters, but when you are in that situation yourself it feels and hits different. Some family and friends can't understand why I am standing by him and didn't just chuck him out.
It's hard when you have grown and built a life and a family with someone and love them so much.
But it hurts so juxh to hear them say that they hadn't been happy for a long time. But rather than him talking to me and telling me and trying to work through things he went elsewhere and just gave up on us and but all his attention and effort into her, but easily lied to me about it and made me feel small and paranoid.
He says to me why do I want to be with him if he made me feel like this, but its not always been bad and when you love someone it's hard to just give up, why would I want to give him up to someone else when I love him and want to spend my life with him.but I feel so inferior compared to her.
I d9nt think my husband would do it again when he has seen all the hurt it has caused and his family were already disappointed with him so I don't think he would do it again and he is still coming to the marriage counselling.
I just dont think sometimes he can see how it has caused me so much pain and how I am struggling to get past what has happened.
I often wonder how it would have been if he left, but I can't bare the thought of him with another woman, more so someone I know.
Is it wrong of me to be struggling how he could be with someone else and maybe act like a different person with them and him saying he had a connection with her and loved her.

I’m 15 months out from discovering my DH sexting someone else, I caught them before they were about to make it physical. He insisted that actually he had no intention of doing so, but the trust was broken for me. I’ve definitely struggled to get it back, but DH has done a lot of work on himself and tried to understand why he did it.

Part of his problem was porn - he had an addiction which I didn’t know about. He was therefore expecting much more of me than I could give him, especially as an exhausted parent carer of two children with SEND. He has since gone cold turkey, and we’re much better for it.

We’ve had counselling, and generally communicate much better than we used to. He is also very considerate of the pain I have suffered because of his behaviour, was open and honest about what happened, and will let me see messages if I challenge him. He recently told me on his own that he was going to contact an ex (not the OW), to send condolences for a passing of their family member, and didn’t want me to worry about why they’d be contacting him.

Staying was not an easy decision, but it’s the work DH put in that made me feel that it was the right one - especially for our DCs. I struggle with my own anxiety and will have random moments of panic and flashbacks, but it is lessening over time.

I am 7 months from finding out about the affair.
I'm the same as you sometimes I look at him and think about what he has done and imagine the things they did together and wonder how he could do it.
It hurts when he says he still has some feelings for her and he did love her and it was hard for him to cut contact with her and delete her number and messages.

My husband said the other day he doesn't think I will ever get over the affair, but I sometimes feel will he ever get over her and does he regret staying with me.
It makes me question everything abiut myself and think what did I do wrong, what didn't I give him etc for him to go elsewhere and it makes me paranoid and over think all the time
Then I also worry is he going to leave me because I am still struggling.
I wish I knew what to do to have the opportunity to bring us back together and make us realise what we have and make us stronger.
Sorry you are in the same position and are struggling, fingers crossed it will get better for you.

So sorry that you had to go through that situation.
I knew the other woman and spent time together as families and couples whilst the affair was happening ( obviously didn't know about the affair ) which has made things harder as it was right under my nose and when I said about things worrying me, I was made out to be paranoid and silly.
He has been coming to marriage counselling, said he was going to do individual counselling but hasn't yet.
It's like he said in counselling yesterday that he has struggled with not being in contact with her and deleting her number and it upset him and sometimes stoll feels like he's been kicked in the stomach and this makes me wonder if he would have felt the same if he had left me for her.
It's like he got all the excitement with her as it was the sneaking around and there was none of the boring day to day stuff to deal with when they were together.
So now I worry that I am too boring for him and wonder if he is quiet or short tempered is it because he is thinking about her.
What did you find helped you to move on from it and become a stronger team and communicate better ?

I’m so sorry, I know how you feel - every thing you have said rings true. There are many wise words on this thread with many people saying similar. Affairs are not about you or me, it is about weakness in them. Affairs aren’t real, they are escapism for the weak and selfish. It is something they think they need and are entitled to. My wife sees this now and is mortified, I hope your husband comes to this realisation also. As for missing the other woman, perhaps this is brutal honesty on his part. My advice is for you to succeed, he needs to be fixed of his weakness/selfishness and be utterly remorseful, you need to get through this supported by him and as a couple you need to be better than ever before. A lot of what you read about affair recovery is that the old relationship is done and over, you need to build something new but better as maybe better and wiser people. Such easy words to write, such a hard thing to go through. My wife is currently away with work and it is driving me mad, but I am holding the faith that she really wants to be a better person. I so hope things get better for you soon.

Unfortunately o already asked questions previously which he answered, so now I do keep thinking about it and keep comparing myself to her and questioning things on what he said they did and what happened between them and find myself feeling inferior.
The counsellor said rhe other day to try and not keep comparing what we have to what they had and think about what our relationship was like prior to the affair and work on what could be better now l, it's hard when it feels like it sounded like he was more affectionate, more adventurous and happier with her than he is with me.
I wish I knew ways to not keep thinking about these things and thinking this way.

I agree whether you stay with the person who had the affair or decide to leave you are strong either way, because either way takes alot of strength and decisions and life changes, neither is simple.
I just hope and wish my husband isant only staying with me due to our child and financial reasons.
I hope he does love me and wants to be happy with me I just want to build that bond, connection and spark and want him to want me again and for me to be enough.

Yeah I agree it's not about forgiveness, because why should you forgive them for something so horrible that they have done, it's about accepting what they have done and working forward from it.

My husband has said he regrets what he has done and he never thought he would do something like this, it just happened and he hates the way he treat me before it all came out with basically gaslighting me and making me feel like u was being paranoid and wrong all the time, to basically pass the blame so he wasn't feeling as guilty for what he did.

He could see all the hurt he caused me and our son when it came out.
It killed him to think he could loose everything, his house, seeing his son all the time and he said he and this other woman had already said previously that they wouldn't want to live together.

He has now deleted her number and all her messages, but when he did it he got upset and cried, he did it in counselling as i brought it up in counselling.
I hate that they know where each other lives and it was his best friends partner so our kids had grown up together and there was only 5 months between them and I classed her as a friend and we used to spend alot of time together, so things have changed drastically for me and my son asking why he doesn't see his friend anymore.

Thankyou for the long post and all the advice and what posts to read

It hard understanding affairs and why they happen and the repercussions thay come with having the affair and when it comes out.

Sorry for the situation you had to go through.

Thanks for the hug, I send you a hug and a thankyou back.

Sometimes I want to sit and talk to him about how I am feeling, but I feel like it would just turn into an argument.

That is sad. After he’s hurt and betrayed you, but he can’t listen to your feelings?

@Owlgirl1987 7 months out is nothing in recovery terms , it’s still early days. If he really still has “feelings” for the OW then reconciliation is nigh on impossible. If he’s talking in the past tense about it all then it’s gut wrenching to hear but at least he’s being honest about it.
First of all, none of this is your fault or your marriage’s fault, it’s his fault, You carry no blame for the infidelity, none. Read that and believe it, it’s true.
He had other options than to cheat. He chose to cheat in response to whatever “issues” he had instead of being honest and loyal to you and the marriage.
I can guarantee you that there is nothing you could have done, no ‘improved’ version of you that could have stopped this, it was him. It was what he wanted to do, so he used a re-write of you, the marriage and anything else at his disposal to try to excuse his appalling behaviour. He felt guilty and knew he was being a shit, so to excuse himself and feel less guilty he made up a narrative around that, which cast you and the marriage as the “problems” and cast him as the unhappy “hero” allegedly trapped by circumstances who nobly stayed with his family and just had an affair to be happy instead of cruelly abandoning you all. All said tongue in cheek by me, obviously. He was so very in love with this woman that he left you and ran off with her. Oh no, hang on a minute, he didn’t, did he? He wanted to stay with you. So much for this amazing “love” which was so gut wrenchingly hard to get over 🙄 What he had a hangover from and craving for wasn’t her, it was the affair itself, it was what she represented, ie a huge flattering ego boost and exciting secret naughty thing to do. He missed the drug-like high, the illicit thrill. Love? Don’t make me laugh.

If he’s been honest about all of it, including feelings, then that’s a good start. But what you must not do is compare, romanticise as a huge love story what was actually just another tawdry affair and a betrayal by two people encouraging each other’s shitty behaviour and getting off on that. She was a crutch, an escape, a way of getting “excitement” into his life in order to avoid his responsibilities and avoid dealing with life and marriage and children and all the stuff which is real.
Affair feelings sometimes do become real relationships but the vast majority don’t. The ones that do are usually where those involved already want out of the marriage and don’t bother trying again when they get found out. They leave.
Most affairs operate in fantasy bubbles where real life doesn’t intrude, so stay in the initial “exciting novelty” stage for longer than real relationships, because reality never intrudes, it’s just presenting your best self, dressed up and one long date with forbidden sex attached. The illicit nature of the exciting feelings create a real high and often get mistaken for love.
My husband said that once reality started to intrude “it astonished me how quickly it turned to shit”. He didn’t have to think about the shitshow he was risking during the affair, because in the bubble it didn’t exist and was never going to happen. He never had to think it through or wonder what it would be like to lose me, look me and his kids in the eye and tell us what he’d done. In the affair bubble it was just them and their secret, we never even figured. Two worlds, separate entities to him.
Once I found out, everything collided, he couldn’t avoid that any longer or put OW off any longer (she’d had enough of the future faking he was doing and was starting to question why he talked about leaving but never did, so when I found out it was about to implode anyway) and the about turn of his “feelings” was pretty rapid to say the least. He later said “To be honest she could have been anybody. I didn’t see it but I was in actually in love with the situation.”
To say all this is hard OP is an understatement. A huge understatement. He should be transparent, honest and very, very sympathetic to your hurt and grief.
Just remember you can change your mind at any time, but any reconciliation has no contact, ever, with the AP, and full commitment to you and working out his issues. You might find in the future that you no longer want the relationship, that it’s too much to work through (you will never “get over” this, but you can heal) and that’s OK, you can’t possibly know definitely what you want at only 7 months out, it’s a rollercoaster of wanting him and then wanting to run, so take one day at a time and be kind to yourself. You’ll know in time and he needs time to show you he’ll move heaven and earth for you.
But never, EVER take any blame for this, you were and are enough, she wasn’t ‘better’ or ‘more exciting’ she was just making herself available and willing to collude with your husband in an adulterous relationship. His fault and his choice, but she went along with it and as a so-called friend, socialising with you during the affair was appalling. She’s hardly a prize either.
Ignore stuff like “I haven’t been happy for a long time” , it’s part of the excuses bullshit and even so, boo hoo, adults talk about this stuff and work it out, not run to somebody else. He needs to drop this kind of stuff and start putting the blame where it lies, on him, and realise that he cheated because of a flaw in his character, his issues, not yours. Don’t you dare let this or him make you feel “less than” OP, this is carried shame, bundle it up and give it back to its owner, him. He’s the one who currently is less than and not enough, not you. Take care OP X