Infidelity - please read and help!

[racoon123]

My husband and I have been together for 20 years - he had an affair 5 years ago - I discovered the affair. I made the decision to stay (for many reasons) and whilst it has been the hardest thing I have ever endured in my life, we have overcome our issues and have been relatively happy. However, the reason that I am writing this is that even though several years have passed since discovery, I continue to feel pain deep down that no matter how hard I try, I can not overcome. I love him but I feel that the day I discovered his affair, I lost a certain level of respect for him that has never been regained and I somehow look at him differently. I feel that I put a wall up and continue to hide my vulnerability, as a way of protecting myself as I never want to feel hurt like that again. I miss how I used to feel about him and want this deep rooted resentment to disappear but I just don’t know how to get there?! Any advice or kind words appreciated…please no hating about cheaters - that is not the reason for my post - thank you

“we have overcome our issues and have been relatively happy.”

You need to hang on to that, OP. I’m sure you had good reasons for staying, and you need to speak to your DH because this is a trust issue - you don’t have to forget what he did, but in order to make your relationship work, you do have to forgive him. I can completely understand why you would feel resentful, but you need to put it behind you. Does he know how you feel? If he has said he is sorry and tried to show you that things are different, he can’t really do more than that - and if you continue to hold it against him, you will destroy what is left of your relationship. Have you considered couples counselling?

I could never stay with someone who cheated because when you genuinely love someone, you cannot hurt them because hurting them hurts you.
the relationship will never be the same because you have this knowledge of him that you will never not know.

it depends if you want to settle for that forever really.

Have you had talking therapy at all?
Was he regretful? Did you talk about whether he wanted to be with you, and you with him?

No hate from me, I stayed.
Have you had therapy to help you deal with this? Has he? To help him understand why he made such shitty choices and prevent him making them again? If either of you haven’t, I highly recommend it. In fact I couldn’t and wouldn’t have stayed if DH hadn’t done that work. I also needed support because I full on lost my shit!

I am four years out now and in the last 6 months feel like I’ve finally turned the corner. It’s no longer on my mind EVERY SINGLE MINUTE like it used to be, I feel much more like my old self. But, an improved version. I put myself first far more now (total people pleaser before!) and make sure my needs are being met. I also read a book called “Who Moved my Cheese” which was massively helpful for me.

I don’t think I will ever forgive him, that is a step too far for me. What I have done is accepted that he did it, why he did it and that it was absolutely nothing to do with me, or the marriage, because it wasn’t. It was entirely him and his own issues which he has worked incredibly hard to address and openly admits he should have sorted years ago.

Would I still rather he hadn’t done it? Yes. Am I glad I stayed? Also yes. Good luck xx

Have you gone through therapy?

You feel disrespect for him because he disrespected you , horribly

You can't make the feeling go away

You have to work through it and see where the work takes you

You might find that when you explore your feelings, you change

Infidelity is something some people can overcome eventually and some can't. Even if you arrive at some kind of ok, happy place there is no way to feel the same as you did before it happened. It did happen and you can't undo that.

Some people are more sensitive and led by their emotions and some live in a much more pragmatic way. Neither is right or wrong, just different. If you are a more emotional, sensitive person it is practically impossible to 'get over' being cheated on because your heart and emotions won't let you. If you want that pure, trusting, untainted kind of love again you just won't get that from the same person who cheated on you. Many will say you can but I truly believe it depends on the individual person. They may have been able to, it doesn't mean you can. Everyone is different.

It's a case of trying to decide if the relationship as it is now will make you happier than starting over. You can spend years doing relationship counselling, date nights and reading books on infidelity but none of that will undo what happened. You need to let go of the idea of seeing him in the same way that you used to because that just isn't possible. You can see him in a different way which may be enough to be happy or maybe not.

The affair recovery/reconciliation industry is huge with countless videos (which make the creators a lot of money) and people telling their stories of being happier than ever but that is THEM. This is about you and what your feelings are. These days people are very quick to make decisions based on other peoples stories, advice and experiences because we see and hear so much from everyone. We don't want to make a choice that we may end up regretting so it's easier to find answers and hope on forums, books, YouTube etc because then it's almost like someone else has decided for us. Hearing others stories is interesting and may be worth hearing but it does not mean you should feel the same or take the same path. If you've tried and can't feel at peace in your life it is absolutely ok to start over and do what's right for you. Only you can decide and need to do a lot of soul searching which tends to be uncomfortable and confronting so it's easier to just coast along.

You can choose to move forward either way but you can't go back to exactly how things were before the cheating. That just isn't an option unfortunately.

No hate from me - I stayed too. I am 13 years on. It does fundamentally change your relationship and the trust has gone - it won’t ever be the same. You just have to mange those feelings and accept it.

Also don’t keep mentioning it - that will just build resentment between the two of you. You decided to stay and work it out and you’ve been together five years post d day. So something must be right.

After 5 years post d day I discover my DH was still trying to contact OW. She was my friend prior to this. She had kept me updated. That was a shock - but it was more due to things going on in his life. He’d had a bad health diagnosis.

we get along well now but things will never be the same as before it happened - just different. I had therapy to help me with coping mechanisms and it worked and the hate is no longer there.

Whatever your reasons for staying I’m sure they’re necessary - and you just need to do the best for yourself. Four years was the turning point for me. We’d been together 17 years when he did it. It was a v short term affair of a few weeks. If it had been longer term I wouldn’t have stayed. But we all have our reasons and to me it wasn’t worth throwing away what we had for a 4/5 week affair.

Good luck.

I think it's normal to still feel pain about something like this. It's hard to reconcile the person who says they love you with the person who hurt you so much, and he's shown you what he's capable of.

He betrayed you and broke the marriage, and while you've worked through it and rebuilt, that can't be undone.

He's not the person you thought he was before the affair. He let you down.

It's perfectly natural to invest less and trust less when the person has shown himself to be untrustworthy.

Has he been open and honest since?

I think it would be the death of my marriage. Even if I would want to forgive and forget it wouldn't be possible. Even being in the same room would gross me out so I don't blame you for not feeling the same about him.

it's interesting you say 'we have overcome our issues ' then detail exactly how you have not overcome them at all. I wonder why you do not want to allow yourself to accept that actually you haven't overcome them.

It's absolutely okay to not be over it - and is that something you don't want to face because it will mean leaving him and that is scary?

It's something I would be talking through with a therapist.

You took the hit, stayed in the game, and rebuilt that already says a lot about your strength. But here’s the thing: you’re not crazy for still feeling what you feel. Betrayal rewires trust. It’s not about punishment, or about ‘getting over it’ on a timeline someone else sets. It’s about accepting that some fractures don’t return to their original form they become something different. Sometimes stronger, sometimes just different. You don’t need to erase the past to move forward. You need to respect the version of yourself that survived it. It’s okay to love him and still carry scars. That’s real life, not a fairy tale. Stop trying to kill the resentment work with it. Understand it. You’re not broken. You’re just someone who’s learned the price of trust and you’re still standing

This isn't going to go away OP.

How you feel now, isn't going to change. Because you're never going to forget what he did to you. You're never going to be able to respect him, trust him again, not the way you did before the affair. You have to live with the knowledge that he is capable of hurting you, and might one day do it again.

I'm not saying this to try and convince you to leave, but so that you understand that this, how you feel now, is probably as good as it gets. It's up to you to decide whether "broadly happy but with a constant small pit in your stomach" is better than the possible alternatives.

I don't think you can ever feel the same about them tbh