I’ve hurt my wife. How do I fix this?

[AStupidMan]

I hope I’m ok posting here. I’m a man, and I’m looking for some advice for my marriage.
Been with my wife for 15 years, and I love her more than anything.
I haven’t been the best husband over the years, and now my behavior is coming back to haunt me.

For years now, my wife has been asking for more intimacy, and I would reject her frequently. This caused many arguments and tears from her. Now I have my hard hat on, and I know I will get the roasting I deserve, but I regularly watched porn behind her back, although I wasn’t addicted. This progressed to adding women on social media accounts I was attracted to. I don’t know why I did this, I just wasn’t thinking.

Anyway, two years ago my wife found these accounts and to say she was upset would be an understatement. I instantly realised how awful I had been, and I’ve closed all the accounts, and not touched porn/social media once. Im trying so hard to be a good husband to her. Seeing her upset has been horrible. She doesn’t think I find her attractive (which isn’t true) and she doesn’t trust me anymore. We have had such intense arguments since she discovered this and she’s thrown many hurtful insults at me (calling me a creep, a sleaze etc)

She can’t seem to move on and look at the fact I’ve been a better man in the last two years(in her own admission), instead she is stuck in the past saying she feels inadequate, unattractive and that I’d still be doing this behind her back if I hadn’t have been caught. She even thinks I would have progressed to cheating on her (not true)

I really love my wife and I’m devastated I hurt her. Seeing her upset really woke me up to my shitty behavior. How can I fixed this?

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

You simply nailed it. The guy is the ultimate narcissist. He doesn’t give a shit about her. He only cares about what he has to lose and came here to get some advise on how to manipulate her further.

Very often they'll suggest each getting your own counselling before attending as a couple, so each can clarify their own feelings and position beforehand

So among other things she'll be helped to decide if this is salvageable or not, and you'll be encouraged to understand how you came to make these choices in the first place

Newsflash
YOU are the one with the problem.
Not her.

She is giving the response that is appropriate for what has happened.
You just want HER to change or to suck it up.

Nope.

You need to start understanding why the 'i want' is the issue here.

She is coming second to what you want even in your thought process over this. You think she needs fixing.

She doesn't.

15 years?
Children?
Sorry mate, I think this ship has sailed.
(From a 45 yo, married for 20 years).

So she suggested you get counselling two years ago to try and fix things.

You still haven’t booked a session.

Yet you’re here wondering why nothing is fixed.

Fuck. Massive face palm. Is anyone really this pathetic and stupid or is this a wind up?

😂😂

Oh get a grip! You men think it’s ok to be a slimey perv and go adding these young women on social media and then when you’re called out you all claim you don’t know why you did it or you don’t know how they got there! You’re a pervy little slimeball that’s why! You knew exactly what you were doing so don’t keep making excuses for your dirty slimy behaviour! You deserve all you get! No sympathy from me!

Referencing my earlier post, I don't think you'd be completely honest with the counsellor if your wife is there. You'd moderate your language, gloss over your own accountability, and hold things back. You really need to unpick why you did what you did, and really, your wife won't benefit from watching you unpick it.

You'll also probably focus on what your wife is 'not doing' to help the relationship and use it as a distraction from working on yourself.

You have made some poor choices as has been said many times.

However you seem like you want to change and that's fair.

Not sure what counselling will do to be honest though.

Lots of people "properly cheat" and get past it - it depends on your wife really. She needs to also recognise you are doing your best and has to also make a decision about things i.e. whether she can forgive and forget or not.

No point being miserable for the rest of time as that brings everyone down.

I'm afraid the simple answer is you're going to have to suck it up buttercup, this is the bed you made so however long it takes for her to move past it, you just have to accept it.
The best apology is changed behaviour if you're serious she will see the changes eventually.

Actually, after reading again carefully, nah.
I wouldn't bother.

She needs to also recognise you are doing your best

He isn't, though. She's asked him to go to therapy on his own and he hasn't done it and is quibbling about it. He doesn't want to hear what she has to say about it because it's not "positive" and he still thinks doing his duty with home and kids is "helping".

Well no. Because she doesn't have any issues does she? Except you. You're the issue. Tell us, how long in your mind did you put to one side for your wife to be upset before you decided she'd had enough time?

I often think men get a really hard, unwarranted time on MN but you? You're really not arsed about trying to 'get it'. You think your long suffering wife should be over it by now why exactly? Because you say so?For the first time I would have handed her my LTB card to your wife, even more so after your posts.

Doing his best? He hasn't even done the single thing she has asked of him.
Do men really think not cheating and "helping" at home qualifies as doing their best? I despair.

You want her to heal and move on? End the marriage. Give her the chance to find real love with someone who isn’t such a repulsive specimen.

Is anybody else hoping his wife is currently biding her time, waiting till the children are a bit older and getting her financial situation in order in preparation for a divorce ?

I've seen men like the OP post divorce, start again with a younger model, thinking they'll get it right this time only to find themselves with sleepless nights and pushing prams around the park in their 50s, whilst the first wife enjoys her new found freedom with grown up children and no more useless husband.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. OP's wife, if you're reading LTB!

My ex used to do this. Fuck up massively and then come with flowers or whatever.

Worked in my early 20s, definitely wouldn't now.

You have a lot of focussed work to do on your own to help you understand why you’ve spent years hiding behind online images in order to avoid being vulnerable and intimate with her (I said more about this in an earlier post). You may be trying to make superficial steps to change, but the work you need to do to understand fully and take ownership is yours to do. Maybe at that point you might look at joint counselling, but it’s not for her to manage.

Tbf he probably is doing his best.

His best is just pretty terrible compared to most decent people.

Why do you want your wife to go to counselling with you?

You're the cheat.

How do you fix it? Fuck off and grow up.

My ex-DH avoided sex with me for YEARS, right from the outset. I thought he was maybe asexual & thought I could cope with that somehow…. Until I caught him watching porn… and realised that the problem lay with him not wanting sex with ME.

We limped on for a few miserable years, with my dying inside of self-loathing & rejection…. Before I divorced him 💪🏻 ✅. And have been having tonnes of sex with various very interested men ever since.

Im fairly sure your poor wife will go the same route and she can look forward to being found unbelievably sexy by her next lover. And that pain you feel on reading that? That pain is all yours to own.

She is right in that you would of carried on if not caught. I bet a lot of lovers who watch porn regularly are crap in bed. It teaches nothing about how a woman would want it.
You were thinking at the time, thinking about how you fancied the other women, enjoying the buzz it gave you to look at them. Fantasising about being with them and not your wife, in fact rejecting your DW in preference for them. But you should take a look in the mirror and see that non of the fantasy women would touch you with a bargepole, it's delusional.
You've not got an adequate explanation of why affection was beneath you at the time, not just sex. If you were honest, I suspect that no, you didn't find your DW as attractive in comparison to your fantasy women at the time. You would not have turned her down otherwise.
Your DW's mistake is accepting your judgement, why has she allowed herself to be judged by you, you are not the oracle ? It's unfortunate she has, but it's understandable why, as you've destroyed her esteem by rejecting her, that's hard to come back from. But her low self esteem is probably why she didn't leave you either.
Her finding you out has snapped you back into reality. Wasn't all that fantasy so stupid on reflection? Nothing like seeing someone's pain and anguish to make you realise you loved them after all.
She perhaps has had a fragile ego before all this though, otherwise she would of ditched you years ago for being unsatisfactory in bed, and having her requests for better ignored.

She must have had feelings for you to have stuck around for as long as she did with your behaviour. I think it is worthwhile having a non-begging conversation with her and actually listening to her about what she wants. She may just be through with the marriage and in that case I think you should let her go. Some women can and do forgive affairs but if two years later she is still very obviously unhappy about your behaviour which although disloyal was less than an affair, things don't look hopeful. Obviously the relationship in its present form is not benefiting either of you. If she can't forgive you ever or trust you again, I think you'll have to cut your losses and leave. Yes, you did really stupid things which must have hurt her a lot but I don't think you need to spend the rest of your life living with an unhappy women who insults and name calls you on a regular basis to atone for your sins.

So very instant it took him a decade to realise 😂

Men like you don't deserve happy wonderful wives. You reap what you sow.