How many marriages survive infidelity?

[iusedtobeasize8]

7 months ago I found out my husband of 20 years had been having an affair. He completely denied it at first and tried to explain away evidence I had found but I knew in my gut that I was right. I threw him out of the marital home and was completely heartbroken. He eventually admitted to meeting someone else but denied that anything physical had happened as the other woman didn’t want to get involved while we were still together. All lies of course. Through much digging I finally found out who she was and I messaged her - she blocked me. She is nothing like me at all and I do wonder what the attraction was but he has since told me that it could have been anyone who paid him some attention. After I threw him out they continued seeing each other for around another month until he realised that he didn’t actually want her and he wanted me all along.
Since then he has tried to build bridges with me and our children. We’ve been to marriage counselling which has helped but I still can’t get over the way he’s treated me. He apologises all the time saying he was in a bad place at the time. I don’t trust him and feel 7 months on I could still throttle him for what he has done to our family. My counsellor says it will take take time but if me and DH are invested in making it work it will. I’m not so sure. I do love him deeply otherwise I wouldn’t be trying to repair the marriage but what if love isn’t enough? Has anyone had experience of this and it has all worked out? Or am I best to just get on with my life. Kind replies please - I know what he’s done is horrendous but it’s hard to switch feelings off after 20 years. Thanks

Surprised no-one has posted yet with the standard - dump him and get an STI test!!!

They can survive. A friend was cheated on 20 years ago, and still together and very happy (I dont know how bad the cheating was). I know of another whose relationship blew up straight away but it was doomed anyway regardless of the cheating.

I have been cheated on. We got on with it but deep down there was mistrust from me to her which did affect the relationship a bit. Did it cause us to break up, no, but would we have been able to not drift apart so much without it, who knows.

We all make mistakes, we all do things we regret, although IMO there is a difference between a 2 week fling and an affair that lasts months.

If you love him deeply AND he feels the same, then it's got every chance of working out. What you need is clear communication.

He has had an STI check and shown me the results. Lucky he was all clear.

I think I could have forgiven a one night stand. They met in October and started messaging, met up in November and December several times including weekends away ( I thought he was working). I found out at the end of December. The fact he carried on seeing her throughout January really hurts when he should have been begging for forgiveness.

7 months is very, very early days for affair recovery. All the data says at least 2 years. We are about 18 months into recovery after my H had an affair lasting several months, also after about 20 years of marriage. I am mostly happy, trust is slowly returning, but I know I can still walk away if I choose. I had a lot of counselling to understand my part in creating an environment where our marriage became vulnerable to external influence.

It is really hard to find hard data on infidelity recovery, but I keep coming back to numbers that suggest that up to 70% of those who want to reconcile do it successfully. A lot of people choose to walk away, so should not even be considered in terms of how many marriages survive.

I have built myself a life and network of my own, completely separate to our joint friendships and I have removed people from my life who don't understand or support my wish to keep my marriage. Many people don't like to be reminded of 'there but for the grace of God' etc but I am aware of a number of marriages impacted by affairs, some long ago, others more recently, but almost all of them have chosen to stay and work on repair. People don't tend to talk about it until they know you will be sympathetic.

I think you've identified the problem there, @iusedtobeasize8 . It's not that he slept with someone else; you could have probably handled that, and that's what you seem to be focussing on. But the problem is the layer upon layer upon layer of lies, over months, and the fact that now, you won't ever be able to trust a word that comes out of his mouth. How could you? He's proven to you how many lies he'll tell, simply to avoid dealing with your response to the truth.

Don't you feel like he's pathetic, as well as the anger you feel towards him?

Marriages can survive anything, but it's not a good question. People stay married when they're not happy, when they don't trust their partners, when the love has gone, when the trust has been destroyed, all sorts. 'Marriages surviving' is not about you, and this is. This is about you, and where you decide you want to place your boundaries. And what kind of boundary setting you want to demonstrate to your kids. They might not know all the details, but they'll know, currently, that you feel horrible towards him, and if you accept him back, that will show them that that's an acceptable course of action. Would you want them to go back, if they were in this situation in the future? If not, show them how not to.

How old are they? I wish my Mum had left my father. It would have shown me a better way than all my relationships until I had counselling in my 40s. Even if she'd done it when I was in my 20s it would have helped, and I suspect your children are younger.

Thank you for the responses. I do look at him sometimes with pity. What a weak man and certainly not the man I married.
My DC are all teenagers and know what he’s done. One of my DC knew about the affair before I did and kept it to herself, not knowing what to do. It has affected her a lot. I’ll never forgive him for putting her in that position.

Hiya OP
I survived infidelity but my relationship is not a marriage and isn’t as long as yours but I hope it becomes as long!!! I don’t think my personal experience will be that helpful in that regard
however when I was desperate for help I confided in my older close relative. She then dropped the bomb that she had reconciled with her husband after discovering multiple infidelities all in one go! She was a few years past it so she was in a good place to counsel me as a confidante.

they had grown up kids and a healthy bank balance/lifestyle so she would have been okay to split but she chose to reconcile for her own reasons. I think a lot more relationships than we know reconcile after infidelity but it has to be done right so you don’t just survive in your marriage but thrive instead.

you are still very very early in the process. I can understand that him seeing her through January is painful. Unfortunately the cheating partner often makes a lot of mistakes at the start of reconciliation. Affair fog/limerance can be a huge issue

is your husband in counselling too? He needs to get to the bottom of why he allowed this to happen because the affair is not your fault and he himself needs to future proof your relationship

best wishes OP x

You know what, potentially I could forgive the infidelity. But this:

"One of my DC knew about the affair before I did and kept it to herself, not knowing what to do. It has affected her a lot."

There's no possible way I could ever forgive DP if she put DD through that. And I'd feel like I was betraying DD if I stayed in the relationship.

In my experience very few survive and the ones that do, the betrayed spouse often wishes they had left at the time.

I tried for 7 years after my STBXH cheated, the usual reasons - young kids, financial, afraid of the unknown etc.

His affair was my first thought when I looked at him, but I tried. I knew I wouldn't be able to forgive him but what I didn't realise was I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for staying with him. That was the killer for me.

So i got my ducks in a row over the course of several years (all the while hoping that we'd work it out) and when I realised that I would never feel true peace while married to him, I was done.

All that time from an outside perspective people thought we were happy and we had survived the storm but I spent those years waiting for another knife in my back and I finally chose to put myself first.

Just like he did when he embarked on his affair, he weighed up the potential consequences and hurt if I found out and yet the ego boost of a bit of strange was worth more than the destruction of his wife.

Happy ending to this tale is that I'm free, I was able to let go of all the hate and resentment I carried for so long and just be me again.

I'm 9 months after discovering my husbands 6 week affair. We've been together for 30 years.

As soon as I asked he confessed all, cut contact with OW.

It is harder than I imagined, but we are slowly getting there - there are times when we are happy as we were.

I'm pleased we're still together, we work hard at it, and whilst I wished it hadn't happened, it did make us both look at what we wanted in life.

Have a look at survivinginfidelity.com
It's got some really positive stories on

Seven months is not a long time for this situation imo.

I was in your shoes and I did stay after finding out about his affair. Things seemed to be okay for the first while, but it was him making all the effort, although he refused counselling.

I can't say that I trusted him at all though.

Then after 6 years I caught him out in yet another affair, and this time there was just no way I could it again.

I think now I should have done things differently. I wished I had asked him to move out and give me the space I needed to decide what I wanted. He was so scared of me chucking him out, that he went quite ott with attention, gifts, suddenly becoming father of the year etc etc that it clouded things for me. I wanted to believe things were better and had gone back to normal, but it's was the furthest thing ever from that. I ended up hospitalized and on so many meds, just to get through the day.

You need to decide what YOU want without his input of what he wants. He did this, but now unfortunately the hard decision of what to do is left up to you.

But you take your time. As you have such a shock that alone takes time to cope with, never mind all the rest of it.

He's hurt and betrayed you and your children. It's over.
It's hard because you love/d him but the trust is gone.

I forgot to say that my dd also knew. She managed to see messages they sent to each other (in the movies so the screen light was bright, so brazen and thick as two planks is he, if he thought he was being discreet).

Just keep an eye on your dd, perhaps even now look to get her some counselling perhaps. My dd took things very very hard as she told me about the messages, and felt she was to blame for me chucking him out. I feel the same as you, I will never ever forgive him for putting her in the position he did.

I tried to make it work , for the sake of my children. My husband said he was sorry and all the other correct things . But deep down he was angry and resentful that he had been caught and missed all the fun/ excitement / glamour of his affair and he was horrible to me. He acted like he was the aggrieved party and not me.

Like Pp have said, it was the lies much more than the sex. I knew I could never trust him again and he continued to lie to me about all sorts of other things. Eventually I found out he was still cheating and we split up . He was horrendously awful during the divorce and has barely seem his ( teenage ) kids since .

I really wish I left the first time, it was never the same aftre that. The cheating wasn’t a bad choice that he made once, is was a sign of who he was as a person, an entitled liar and cheat, who stole time and money from me and his kids to spend on his affair partner.

My first marriage did not survive his affair - I tried for 18 months - we had counselling but he (looking back) was not ‘that’ committed to really trying. It was so painful letting go but I just could not trust him - I also didn’t trust the OW as she was ‘besotted’ with him and he hadn’t fully cut ties because he was worried about her ‘mental health.’

I kicked him out in the end, he said he would change etc.. but I just couldn’t do it. He hadn’t really changed in the 18months we had been trying to move forward.

I have been with my current DH for 22 years, and am really happy - but infidelity is now a hard no for me, as I now know I couldn’t live with that worry/ anxiety of never knowing/ forgiving.

I also know there is a life post affair that can meet my needs.

You though need to identify what you want and what is best for you. Take care as you are going through this difficult time.

Sorry you're going through this OP. At just 7 months I can imagine it feels very raw.

My marriage briefly survived the first affair, but not the second. My ex husband had two affairs in six months (while I was pregnant with our third DD).

After the first affair, we went to relate, but I could tell that he was simply going through the motions. He did (willingly) give me access to his work phone as he said he wanted to prove that he was being faithful. That phone was how I found out about the second affair. I personally think he was looking for an exit strategy and an OW was part of that strategy.

Like PPs have said, I really wish that I had left after the first affair. After he left for the second OW my mental health and self esteem were in tatters (I stupidly did the 'pick me' dance too).

Have now been with my DP for 11 years. His ExW cheated on him too, multiple times. Cheating for both us now is an absolute deal breaker.

How are your DCs - especially your daughter? I would find it very hard to forgive him for putting her in that position.

I forgot to say OP I read a lot of Andrew G Marshall articles, I found I liked his approach

https://andrewgmarshall.com/category/infidelity/

Some helpful websites were:

survivinginfidelity.com …its one of the oldest and most well known…some posters on there can be really prescriptive with their advice. The moderators are really good and they are all people out on the other side whether divorced or reconciled. I found a lot of normal posters are quite religious which made it hard for me to relate (I am not). However it does have good information on boundaries and other topics on the pinned threads.

the Reddit AsOneAfterInfidelity
these are all people who are reconciling so it is peer support. There will be people who have been in your situation.
x

My DC were very upset at first and didn’t really want anything to do with him. I actually encouraged them to keep in contact with him and told them that he’d made a mistake and he is still their Dad. They have since thawed towards him but are against me taking him back. My DD has told him that she accepts his apology to her but she will never forgive him for what he has done.

I agree with your dc. The affair is bad enough. The way he acted afterwards and the position he put your child in - that's the nail in the coffin imo.

Marriages can survive infidility but do they thrive? Nobody knows the truth, even the main characters can lie to themselves. You have an alotted time on earth and you spend it however you see fit according to your beliefs, options, disposition and circumstances.. most of us make decisions based on money and fears.. of God, of loneliness, of change.. and before you know it it's all pitch black.

I think it really all depends on context to be honest.

When the situation is "understandable" and people are brutally honest and open about things then yeah, maybe.

It's a rocky path that you're going down though, and I personally think in your situation what gets me is the REPEATED lying. It wasn't just one lie, it was repeated.
You threw him out, and he then ended things with her (or her with him - you'll never know) and suddenly he comes back and wants to build bridges.

This, in my opinion will not survive.

If it was going to survive it might look like:

He admitted the affair, told you everything, dumped her immediately, organised counselling, built bridges and moved out while he did.

From what I see here, he has only come back to you when things finished with her, his first thought wasn't "i made a mistake", his first thought was to keep seeing her.

You're wasting your time and energy on this one and this is going to implode. You were right the first time when you threw him out for the lies, and for the repeated lies, and then for him continuing on with her when he left.

He isn't sorry.

I think that they can survive in a small percentage of cases but in your case, I think that you were his plan B (he came back after dating her for a month) which isn’t a good enough reason for you to forgive him. You deserve to be somebody’s plan A and his actions have demonstrated that you shouldn’t trust him imo.

In my experience infidelity changes you and you need to get to know the new version of him before you can decide on whether or not you want to work at it. He is not the man that you married and you are not the woman Pete-affair either.

Coleen Rooney.
Victoria Beckham.
Tanya Ramsey.
And countless others choose to stay in the marriage for whatever reasons.

I think infidelity is definitely survivable if both parties want to work through it. Still a shit thing to go through mind.

Maybe some marriages can survive, but i think you then always wonder for the rest of the marriage. The questions are endless:
Did he really work late or was he seeing someone?
Did he really have a business trip or was there someone else?
Did he really spend.££ on his innocent hobby or was he taking someone else to dinner?

I think there are So many examples of all the doubts and niggles that once the trust is broken it is not recoverable. I think it's especially not recoverable as he continued the affair and it sounds like he lied repeatedly. Personally I would find it hard (actually impossible) to trust another word he said and that's no marriage.

I had a lot of counselling to understand my part in creating an environment where our marriage became vulnerable to external influence.

Shit me that is victim blaming at it's finest! Who convinced you into that? They can couch it in fancy words all they like - it's still bullshit. The answer to any problems in any marriage is never to shag someone else, it was never ever in anyway your fault. At the point that he was becoming very unhappy he could actually have spoken to you about it and if that did nothing, then left.

This sort of crap, making women responsible for men shagging someone else, makes me so angry.

Beth216
my experience of counselling was not like that thankfully. I really feel for the poster you quoted
it does not sound like their therapist took a trauma informed approach to infidelity
not all do. Some will try and use an outdated ‘unmet need’ model

Hopefully OP has a good counsellor that is more up to date