Husband had an affair - advice needed!

[Strawberrina]

I found out last year that my husband had an affair with a work colleague who is 25 years younger than him. The affair was emotional as well as physical. He was and is her manager at the workplace. The difficulty is that they continue to work together in a small office consisting of 4-5 members of staff, including them, and see each other almost every day. The town in which we live is a small regional town and there are limited jobs available for someone with his level of experience. We have reconciled and are working through things, but I'm at my wits end about what to do! I'm not happy that they work together and see each other almost daily.
Any advice would be welcome!

I'm saying he is waiting in the wings for her because that's exactly what happened with me and my now ex wife. She strung me along for 4 years waiting for him to leave his girlfriend.

He will keep you waiting until the other woman who he will be in contact with every single day decides there future. My exes shag partner didn't get cold feet, he just used her for sex. Then went back to his little, fit as a fiddle dance teacher girlfriend.
But our marriage was already over and to this day my ex won't tell anyone the truth. She even invited the girlfriend over to her house for a party.
You are 2nd choice like I was. Don't accept it.

Hi @BritIndianGal of course I feel angry towards him!
My feelings have absolutely changed and I no longer put him on a pedestal like I used to.
The adult DCs know, as well as my sister who lives overseas.

OP,

The reason people say these things is because for you to be able to have a trusting and rewarding relationship LONG TERM both you and your H need to learn much better relational maturity skills.

During the course of this thread the posters have not seen evidence on boundaries you have put in place to motivate your cheating H to learn these skills.

Therefore they are deducing that he has not done this work and will therefore be at high risk of repeating past behaviours.

What does learning the skills look like?
Example on his side:

• learning how to communicate what is going on inside of him emotionally. His inner drives. His fantasies. His values even when they are in direct conflict with yours. Being able to bear the discomfort which comes with feeling the Shame of what he has done.

Example on your side

• learning to sit and hear these stories from him without spiralling into negative emotions and blocking him out.

Hope that helps with the specifics.
There is a lot more to relational maturity.

You can read more here:

Relationship Wisdom

Link missing above^^

There are many other sources online.

I personally see the "putting on a pedestal" as part of your own relational immaturity for example. Nobody should be on either a pedestal nor should be seen as evil or terrible. They are just flawed human beings. To develop a deep trusting relationship you need to have the courage to confront each other's and your own flaws and work on them or accept them.

OP, the reason people on here are cynical in terms of whether your Husband really will now stay committed and loyal and whether you can re-discover respect and trust in your marriage, is because just from the collective experience on this Board - we do not see this following a healthy pattern of recovery and repair.

Granted he did take a long break where both of you travelled and spent time together; combined with the fact that meanwhile OW physically moved to an office 5 hours away are indeed positives.

Perhaps some posters have concentrated a bit too much on the fact that your husband has not changed jobs, however it does appear clear that you yourself do not want him changing jobs at this stage in his 50s.

The thing is perhaps you will in hindsight when you look back years later be the exception rather than the rule in that your marriage will survive this without going through the required healing process in full; however, it is always better to assume one may well be the rule rather than the exception when making decisions navigating this as it is more likely you may look back and regret not leaving or at least as equally likely to do so. Does that make sense?

I forgot I do also have hope that he may well now be out of the limerance feelings he had for his much much younger OW - it was never practically going to go any where between a 30 year old woman and a 55 year old man or whatever their ages were exactly.

Still the problem remains now , how is he going to gain back your respect and affection again? as all your focus was on getting him to get over OW, what about focusing on what you want now beyond that?

Indeed OP. Please read up on what a full recovery process looks like. This is not something time and distance from the OP alone will heal, but No Contact is an important first step. That means No Physical but also No Emotional contact. Text emails etc. No Contact Whatsoever.

I think Shirley Glass No Just Friends and Affair Recovery.com and Survivinginfidelity.com have huge amounts of useful guidelines for what works and what doesn't.

In my view there is no need to second guess these experts. Even if every couple is unique there is a path to healing as individual people that has to be gone through. And there are tried and trusted methods.

Who Are You exactly? What's coming through from your posts is that you really have no idea of who you are or what your values are.

@Strawberrina your thread is nearly full. Will you be starting a new one and share the link on here. I think you’ve been given some really useful advice and feedback in the last day: wishing you well x