Anyone forgiven a cheating Husband?

[StrawberryPeachBubble]

As the title goes....has anyone forgiven a Husband that's cheated on you?

Were you able to continue the relationship and if so how? How do you move on? Can the trust ever be rebuilt?

Thanks

I think this is the way it will be "I have accepted that it happened and that we chose to move past it.".

It's a very personal decision to each couple, each person in the couple and all the surrounding circumstances in my opinion. To my mind, the analogy of a wound that heals but leaves a scar is very accurate here and the wound can be one that is slow to heal and needs care and attention to get to the scar point.

I also believe that the forgiving actually benefits the person doing the forgiving more than the one is forgiven - allowing yourself to let go and move on within yourself. The point about the cheater wanting to be forgiven is also very important because if they don't want to be, they are not going to commit back into the relationship.

Wishing you all the best if you are going through this. Mind yourself.

I forgave my (now ex) partner when I found out I was the affair. I was 3 months pregnant with his baby when I found out that he'd only left his girlfriend the week prior. He promised it was me he loved, used those charming phrases that I fell for and I found myself stuck but continued for the sake of our baby wanting to be a family.

8 years and 3 children later, I was contacted by a woman who I now know to be his new girlfriend, who was also pregnant with his baby asking if our relationship had ended as she had her suspicions. We were due to be married that summer. Safe to say leopards never change their spots.

Oh op, my heart is with you.
My oh had an affair 9 months ago. I have a thread here about it. It was / is hands down the worst thing I've ever been through.
I stayed, and we are doing well. But honestly I don't know if I would have taken this path if I'd have really understood what it would take.
The circumstances of the affair, of each of you and your relationship are all so important in you deciding how to move forward.
I'm so glad I was in therapy already and had someone I trusted to walk me through it all.
In the beginning my instinct was just to scrabble and claw my way back to some normality. But in the end I had to accept there was no going back - you'll need to come to that conclusion too, whatever you decide to do withe future.
I'm in the position now that I'm still grieving the loss or my marriage whilst building a new relationship with the same man. The new one is better, but the hurt still needs to heal.
I had to examine my part in why we weren't as happy as I thought, whilst also truly understanding that the affair was in no way my own fault and all about him and his choices. It's really important you understand that too - you can't take blame for something you had no control over.
My commitment to our marriage isn't what it was - we both know now that if things aren't right I will walk away and I feel OK about that. I work hard to communicate my needs and frustrations clearly along with my boundaries and I stick to them.
My DH works really hard now to be open and honest and he puts effort into us like never before.
I'm glad I stayed but it's been hard.
No one can tell you what to do, but just remember that you need to love yourself first.
If you're considering staying I recommend Dr Kathy nickersons book - she posts ok social media too

A long time ago, I was sort of forced to 'forgive' my cheating DH because I had 4 young children, including a newborn, no job, no support and no money. I made plans and after some time I threw him out. It is not possible to forgive betrayal and trust can never be rebuilt.

Not a husband, but a long term partner. He did it again.
For the love of all that is holy just don't do it to yourself.

@Allthegoodonesareg0ne I remember your thread :(

As others have said you both need to work incredibly hard to get to a calm, loving and respecful place. It takes a long, long time 2-5 years. You will not ever feel the same & this is a new relationship. People will judge.
I was not prepared to chuck away 25+ years, my life & my home & he has had to fight for me. Everything in the relationship is 50/50, I now have time to myself rather than being the person who did everything. I am stronger, I have a life that has things outside of the family unit & I will walk if needed.
I knew the affair partner & they knew me.
I want to make sure her husband knows & have done my best but I think she has blocked my social media attempts.

I think that everyone has their own concepts of forgiving a person who has cheated on you or not. Speaking for myself, I can say that I would never forgive him, even if we had children together, I would still not forgive him.

If you decide to stay & try to forgive a cheating husband, you have to accept that your relationship will never be the same again. You have "seen the dark side" and you can't unsee it and you can't forget it.

A lot does depend I think on the circumstances and the length of the cheating and also on the husband's reaction. Is he doing everything to make amends or does he have the air of someone who felt entitled to do what he did?

I did, and he did it again. When it was finally over I realised he had a whole other life, the affairs were legion. Whatever you think you know is only the tip of the iceberg.

Is this for a Uni essay?

I forgave, stayed and had three children. Twenty years later I found out he’d just got clever at keeping his dirty secrets. He gave me an STD and he still denies having cheated. The relationship ended.

Not me, one disloyalty and it's goodbye

My husband had an affair. We decided to give it another go. I chose to stay in the end as leaving was ultimately going to fuck up my life even more.
We still have good times and I make the best of what it is. I don’t think I’ll ever truly love him again with a pure heart

And he will probably do it again

Yeah I’m expecting it

i wasted so many years on him, a total covert narcissist.
I tried to get past it for over 2 years post affair, but I kept getting “triggered.” In the end it got too much mainly because he wasn’t really sorry and made no efforts to restore my faith, validate or discuss my hurt or respect me.
I had to walk away and within days he was back to internet dating and very quickly had a new supply in our bed.
In my opinion, you might as well walk away straight away. Leopards don’t change their spots.

People who cheat have an ability to compartmentalise their feelings and justify themselves which is cold and quite scary.

You can never wholeheartedly trust someone who showed you so little respect that they slept with someone else while you were happily caring for their kids/washing their undies/ cooking their dinner/cleaning your shared space.

I tried but couldn’t forgive.

Now - if he’d had a ONS I feel it could have been easier. But it was a longer term affair so the lies had been convincing and repeated. For many months. That’s what I couldn’t get over. It was so easy for him to tell his stories in a manner that gave nothing away that when I found out it was such a shock. I genuinely did not know my husband. And to top it off he trickle truthed the details and had very little remorse. He was only truly sorry for getting caught. I came to terms when we split and were decent friends now. But if we’d stayed together it would have been a car crash.

I think if it had been a one nighter and he’d been really sorry and changed to show his remorse - actions speak louder than words - I’d have managed to forgive that.

You’ve a decision to make. I don’t think any amount of home comforts make up for someone showing continued disrespect and hurtful actions which go on for many many months.

I have a friend who eventually got back with her husband after he left her for an OW. It was after a number of years of him grovelling and I wouldn't say she's ever forgiven him though. She remembers the pain and he acknowledged it. He regrets what he did a lot. They're quite open about it tbh.

Your experience sounds very similar to mine.
Long affairs are very different to a ONS.

I wonder if the OP is going to tell us her story at any point.

Hi everyone
Thank you so much for all your replies I've read them all.

I just wanted to give some background. We have been together since I was 16 we have been married 12 years this year and have a beautiful Son together. I thought we had a wonderful life together and the thought never crossed my mind that he could ever do this to us...he's never been a secretive person, always have access to his phone and vise versa and never had any cause for concern up until recently. We've always had epic communication (I thought) and have been through so so much together and always come out stronger (never infidelity related-just life stuff).

The affair wasn't a one off unfortunately :( the woman is someone I know...our children have been on play dates together before 🤢 which now makes me feel sick to my stomach. My Husband told me everything after I started getting this random gut feeling when you just feel something is off. There were a few things I noticed that didn't feel right. He eventually told me everything and has shown remorse since and begged me for a chance. The woman is denying everything until she's blue in the face. I've asked her directly and she said nothing has happened between them aside from being friends and having banter. (She's married also I may add)

I just don't know how he could do this to us...I've basically been with this man half my life :( and I feel so so betrayed. He has so much to lose and I just don't get it. I feel so broken.

The issue is this woman is in close proximity to workplaces and I just feel like I could never relax again and would always feel on edge, it's made worse by the fact she's denying it completely. The woman in question has been blocked and numbers deleted etc by him. And he's assured me it would never happen again but how can I honestly move on and how would things ever go back to any sort of normal when this is in my mind constantly.

@Toooldtorave interesting isn't it - I get totally how you feel - to me ONS actually would have bothered me less ( not saying it wouldn't have bothered me at all) than an emotional affair or a long term affair - it's the fact that clearly at some point you became a bit of an afterthought and for quite a while.

@RedJamDoughnut I get that and I agree that you don't feel the same - maybe a few people do but I certainly didn't..I was completely poleaxed that he was such a twat and in his case purely an emotional thing with a very young assistant - maybe if my personal situation would have been different I would have ended it - but I wasn't prepared to cut off my nose to spite my face and put me in a very difficult position. We worked together and don't own a house and I was mid 50s at time I found out.

It won’t. There is no normal after this. Only a new normal. What you need to decide is whether that is something you are prepared to accept or whether you would prefer not to.

Some women do, some don’t. If you do, he has shown what he is capable off and as such always will be.