I can't get over the affair

[SailboatSundays]

I hope people can please tell me what to do.

In the early years of our relationship my DP had an affair and although he is the perfect partner now, or at least the one I always hoped I would have, I was never able to get over it.

I still feel astonishing pain and trauma surrounding it, and it impacted me in many ways. Physically, financially, mentally. I am not the same person and it genuinely haunts me.

I reached a point after five years that I think maybe I am just not capable of "getting over it", or finding a way to understand it. Maybe some people can, but maybe not me.

There isn't a day where I don't picture some of what happened, and it is as fresh as the day it occurred in my mind. I just can't understand, still, why he did it or how he could do it.

While he was there for the first couple of years for all the tears and anger, there comes a point where you can't keep on like that. So he got busy building the life he knew I had wanted, the life we'd planned before the affair, and he did everything he could to make us happy.

Meanwhile I just started crying in the toilet or when he was at work. I stopped looking after myself. I got fat. I stopped wearing pretty clothes. We don't have sex anymore when we used to be at it like rabbits.

He has been asking me if I still love him and why he doesn't make me happy. He says he can't be happy if I am not happy and keeps asking what I need to be so, but I feel like his affair killed that ability in me and for some weird reason I feel guilty for that like I am overreacting and someone else would be able to move on and upwards.

I am not trying to punish him. I just cannot fix my broken heart. I don't know how to fix it. I am aware I probably sound pathetic right now, but I am being honest.

I have tried many times to give him an out. I said today that maybe he would be better off leaving because I wasn't going to feel better and I thought I would be better on my own because he was a reminder of the pain. And he got into a panic and had to leave work when his job is not the kind of job you can just leave, and now I just feel guilty for bringing it up because he is in a real state.

He says he can't be happy without me, and that there is no life where he could ever be happy that didn't include me but all I keep thinking when he says that, is that he didn't feel that way before when he risked everything to get sex and affection off someone else.

I love him very much still. He's the love of my life is such a thing exists. I am not like this 24/7 and in the good times he makes me laugh so much, he is so kind, he is my best friend, he is brilliant really. So why can't I let this go?

I feel like leaving would be the kindest thing to us both. For me, because I could just go off and grieve without needing to pretend to be all right. Or to see myself unravel in front of him and feel even smaller than I do already. And for him so he could go off and have a nice life instead of paying penance forever.

He says that there is no possible version of life where he could be happy without me or grow old without me, and that we just have to fix it, and he wants me to speak to the GP or sort out some counselling. He said he would never give up and never stop trying because he loves me and can't do life without me.

I am really not sure what to think or do.

When I break it down, and remember some of the terrible things he did to me, it isn't about being unable to forgive; it's about being completely unable to live with it. I just don't know how to accept it or make peace with it.

I don't want to be sad and in pain for the rest of my life. What is wrong with me?

Can you see a therapist to unpack this? Sounds like you're really hurting.

Sadly, some people never do but many do.. I hope you can. Good luck

There was a podcast by Rangan Chatterjee on this which was really interesting, about how forgiveness for things like affairs is actually about healing yourself not condoning or excusing the other person’s behaviour and he offered some advice from a psychologist on how to try to move on. He actually gave the example of still feeling the same 5 years after an affair and gave strategies for how to heal.
linkPodcast
I’d also recommend Ester Perel’s book or podcast state of affairs, she really unpacks it all. Sending lots of love to you in an unmumsnetty way

It's funny because I saw lots of therapists in my life for various things and always found it very helpful. I also got therapy during the immediate aftermath when things were very fresh or ongoing. For some reason though, I have a strong aversion to it now. I can't really explain why.

Thank you @Gensola . I really don't think not forgiving is my problem though. I do forgive him. I don't want him to feel bad anymore about this. I just want him to be happy.

What I can't seem to do is stop the pain. It's really excruciating and it doesn't diminish with time.

I couldn't get over my first husband's affairs either. Trust, once lost, is almost impossible to regain, and I couldn't live the rest of my life wondering when his next side piece would come along. So I divorced him, found the love of my life, and we've been happily married for 4 decades.

This is so sad as you sound truely broken by it and he sounds utterly remorseful. Why don’t you try going to couples counselling ..: he sounds like would try anything to get back on track. Sorry I don’t have any more creative ideas but I hope your sadness decreases xx

I'm sorry you're still in so much pain over his affair, I have a few questions though:
Did he take full accountability for it? Does he know why he did it? If it was because he was seeking validation from her or some kind of act of autonomy / acting single or even low self worth believing you would cheat on him and he was self-sabotaging and "getting in there first" or just stupid recklesss behaviour, whatever the reason, if you can see that he hasn't resolved that within himself then of course you're going to feel insecure and not able to find peace with it. And obviously for him to resolve it, he needs to know the reason, if he doesn't know the reason I'd say it's very hard maybe impossible for you to find peace over it and that would be totally normal.

He broke your trust, you don't mention what he has done to restore it. Has he done enough by your standards? Honesty, transparency, reassurance. Again, if he hasn't then it's totally normal you haven't been able to move past it.

There is a point you just have to make a decision to trust, let the decision to trust lead and your behaviour follow, do you trust your judgement that you chose a good man? I understand affairs destroy your faith in your own judgement but based on the man he is now.

You do need to stop re-traumatising yourself by re-living it. On some level do you think you're holding on to the pain in order to protect yourself? Or to try to get him to understand just how much he hurt you? From your description it does sound like he doesn't really understand and although has listening hasn't validated your pain, which can cause you to subconsciously hold on to it in an effort to be heard.

I think therapy would be good for you tbh. It sounds like it's really traumatised you, affairs can really wreck with you and cause something close to PTSD.

Thank you. He has suggested we find a counsellor and go back over it all but by bit. I am not sure why I am hesitant. Maybe I am afraid if going over it again (it really was genuinely awful to the point I think I got PTSD) or maybe I feel like it wouldn't make a difference. He said today that we had to fix it and there was no other option so I had to find the will.

There isn’t anything wrong with you. I wouldn’t be able to get over it either.

It sounds like you should have a proper break from him and the relationship and work on loving yourself - it’s making you miserable and you’re punishing yourself for not being ‘over’ something that you should never have had to get ‘over’ in the first place.

I personally couldn’t get over infidelity because I would feel like I was compromising myself and living inauthentically. He betrayed you but now you’re betraying yourself by not honouring what you’re feeling and deserve to feel, because he did a terrible thing and it doesn’t matter how long ago it was, you didn’t deserve it and you don’t deserve to be this unhappy in a relationship now.

Can you access EMDR therapy for trauma? With a therapist who is experienced in trauma and doesn’t push unmet needs theory.

Have you worked on forgiving yourself? Sounds daft but you don’t have to forgive him. You can reconcile without forgiveness and you can forgive and split up. In fact I understand why you may not be able to forgive him. Why should you forgive him. His behaviour was appalling. But that’s okay not to forgive him. But you do need to forgive yourself. Maybe for being traumatised. Or For crying. For not forgiving quickly (or at all) etc. Are there things you give yourself a hard time over? If so what and why? If you do maybe forgiving yourself may help.

Do you blame yourself for what he did? Did you get fed Unmet Needs by anyone (or a counsellor?). because nothing you did made him cheat. It was a choice he made. You can’t make someone cheat or be faithful. It’s all down to them.

Your reaction is a normal reaction to being stabbed in the back by someone who said they loved you. Normally if someone is traumatised they are removed from the source of their trauma, with betrayal you continue to make a life with the person who caused you trauma.

It may be that you cannot reconcile. That the cognitive dissonance is too great.

Cheating in a nutshell is a book that explains the betrayeds feelings well. However it is not pro reconciliation.
The surviving infidelity website may help you too.

Infidelity does cause PISD a form of PTSD in some people

Succinctly said

I also want to say that it's a natural human desire to want to make sense of our lives and
to understand the Why behind something that has such a big effect and struggle to move past it when we don't understand. Sometimes we do just have to accept that the Why was nothing more than immature stupidness though.

I don't actually think your partner is helping by getting himself stressed and putting more pressure on you though, it's just making you feel guilty, he should try to be calm and reassuring.

Sometimes when you go to counselling you don’t have to go back and unpack everything. They can help you work in the here and now.
A lot of people don’t go as they associate it as going to a place of pain but it doesn’t have to be like that. They can help you with you both work on intimacy and your relationship. They give you homework too .. it’s not just go every week for an hour. See what’s out there and sorry this happened to you xx

I think his language is very manipulative. You need to recognise that. You are not responsible for his happiness.

"He said today that we had to fix it and there was no other option so I had to find the will."

You don't have to fix the relationship. You don't have to find the will. The other option is to walk away, to grieve and find someone new that hasn't betrayed your trust.

Of course there is life without you. If course he can live without you. It's so manipulative.

Thank you @CactusPeach

These questions seem really helpful, so thanks.

Did he take full accountability for it?
Yes, 100%

Does he know why he did it?
His explanation is that he wasn't a healthy person when we met so he didn't have the ability to picture himself happy because that wasn't the life he'd known before. He said when he met me he thought I was amazing but had no idea why I wanted to go out with him, so he didn't invest. I didn't know it at the time of the affair, but he had a very traumatic childhood. He didn't tell me about it because he was ashamed, but he told the affair partner (which hurt me enormously). He said she showed up when I wasn't around (I was away for work) and she was easy to talk to and always wanted to listen to him and he said emotional intimacy with her was easy, because he didn't care what she thought of him. And he said he became very attached to her because of that. He said it filled a void of some kind. He said he was he was selfish and seeking validation in the easiest place to get it.

I do not believe he would ever do it again. To say he did the work to change would be an understatement. He did it all, he is not the man who did this anymore. He read books and sorted himself out and I genuinely believe he learned from all of this and would never make the same choices ever again.

I suppose on some level I understand why he did it (sort of), but could never compute how he was capable. Because he knew how much it would harm me, and that's the part I struggle with. There were times he saw how much pain I was in and he didn't stop.

He broke your trust, you don't mention what he has done to restore it. Has he done enough by your standards? Honesty, transparency, reassurance. Again, if he hasn't then it's totally normal you haven't been able to move past it.
Yes, I don't think there is anything else he could have done that he has not done. Sometimes I get annoyed because he isn't that good at self awareness but he tries his best.

There is a point you just have to make a decision to trust, let the decision to trust lead and your behaviour follow, do you trust your judgement that you chose a good man?
I absolutely believe he is a good man, yes. The best man.

You do need to stop re-traumatising yourself by re-living it. On some level do you think you're holding on to the pain in order to protect yourself?
I honestly don't know. I don't understand why I feel like I do.

Or to try to get him to understand just how much he hurt you?
This struck a nerve. I don't think he ever understood how much he hurt me. I don't think anyone understand that. It's been the loneliness experiences of my life.

From your description it does sound like he doesn't really understand and although has listening hasn't validated your pain, which can cause you to subconsciously hold on to it in an effort to be heard.
This feels like it is true. He said to me today that he is always scared to talk about it, that he wants to or wants to ask, but he holds back in case he says the wrong thing. It often makes me feel like he has no idea how much things hurt.

I think therapy would be good for you tbh. It sounds like it's really traumatised you, affairs can really wreck with you and cause something close to PTSD.
I am certain I have PTSD from it. The particular circumstances (which I won't go into) were particularly bad and traumatic and what I experience now is genuine flashbacks. Yesterday something triggered me and I genuinely could not even breathe. He had to sit with me and talk me through every detail of our first date to force my brain to get out of terror mode, because it gets stuck in this awful loop.

Thank you for this. Sometimes I think this is all it is, that maybe I am just someone who can't get over it. It isn't that I am compromising myself or anything like that. It's that I feel like 50 years from now on my deathbed, I am afraid the last thought I will ever have is the email of his that I read to the other woman. It haunts me, it genuinely does. I am afraid of just being sad forever.

You really don’t have to fix the relationship. You need to fix you.

Your focus should be healing you. If that means you lose the relationship then so be it. Your priority is 100% you. You cannot save a relationship and lose yourself in the process.

However no marriage, no kids - what really made you stay?

Thank you for this. So many of these posts are hitting nerves. He suggested EDMR to me.

Have you worked on forgiving yourself?
Do you blame yourself for what he did?
No. I know I was not to blame. What makes it so awful is that I know I gave my best and somehow that wasn't enough to prevent this. He says that is wrong because it had nothing to do with me.

What I don't forgive myself for was doing the pick-me dance (which I did in glory) and for not protecting myself when he was not doing it. I feel very sad that I didn't do that.

I enabled him to continue hedging between me and the other woman for some time, and that is the part that makes me feel sick inside.

He panics. Which I agree isn't helpful. It's because he thinks I will hurt myself I think. His friends wife died this weekend and he was crying about it and wanted to sit next to me all day. I think it triggers his childhood trauma or something, but it does make it difficult.

I can very much relate to this OP. How did you find out if you don't mind me asking? Was it an accident or did he tell you?

If you can't get over it then end the relationship. He's well aware of your feelings even though you haven't said them.

Move on.
Let him move on.

Sorry you can relate to this @kayla12345 :( He confessed was how I found out. Although I was drip fed the story very slowly over months, which was like being punched in the face once a week for six months.

I honestly don't remember what made me stay. I think it was because he seemed so earnestly and desperately sorry.