5 years on from the affair and not recovered

[Puzzlez]

Hi. I was hoping for some feedback from people on my situation.

My long term partner had an affair 5 years ago. It was all horribly messy. The circumstances were particularly difficult at a time where things in my life were already overwhelming and I sustained considerable trauma.

We weren't married, and we both had grown up children but I think it hit me particularly hard because it was so shocking. So unlike him. And sadly after the discovery he did the worst possible thing which was to persuade me to reconcile only to betray me several times again. Realistically it was probably 18 months of on and off torture from the first day I discovered the affair.

I've survived, but certainly part of me died in a way and I've felt like the essence of me hasn't returned and never will return.

After a full blown breakdown, I got back up. I got back to work. I regained my ability to get on with daily life, but I'm fundamentally changed.

I don't really feel joy, hope, excitement or even peace. Just sort of either mild anxiety or a kind of contentment. I feel very disconnected from myself and quite lost.

I stopped being social, cut off all my friends and more or less just see immediate family. My coping mechanism is work. I work all the time and if I keep my brain busy then I can't think about it or remember it.

I stayed with my partner. Although we split for a while. He did everything he could. He's exceptionally devoted and loving and is completely mortified about the past. He wants to know what he can do to help but I don't know the answer.

I have grown children and I'm 49 and part of me longs to just pack a bag and walk out and spend the rest of my life just wandering. Because I don't feel like the same person anymore and I feel like I don't belong in my life.

I've tried a few times to discuss this with my partner but he becomes really panicked and says I'm everything really so he doesn't know how to think of life without me. He just keeps trying to fix it. Most of the time I just work so I can pretend.

That's not to say I'm crying all day. We just get on with things and most days laugh and cuddle and cook dinner and go on holidays and he's always trying to make me happy for which I feel touched but also sad.

This is rambling.

Can anyone identify at all with this?

Thanks everyone. I am not in a good place right now because as I mentioned I had a long holiday / went travelling and it's only in those circumstances where I am not obsessively working that I allow myself to think about these things. It tends to hit me in a way where I feel frozen and can't get out of bed or think or do anything and it's a big fear for me for that to take over. At the worst of it, I spent probably a year in that state and wasn't able to work or sort out the necessary obligations of life and so on, and I never want to get into that state again.

Just to clarify a few things - we aren't married. We weren't living together at the time of the A.

I was away at the time and oblivious to what was going on
Due to circumstances he and her were put together 24/7 for a long period
She was available and giving him lots of attention

I can't read minds, but after years of discussion, analysing, reading their messages it looks to be a situation where they became best buddies of some sort, which led to sex and then this went on for months back and forth.

Months of him saying "this has to stop" and then just doing it again (he can't explain). Her wanting a relationship / him to leave me and him refusing. In the end she phoned me and told me what was going on in the hope that this would get rid of me as she felt they should be together.

Even writing that feels like the worst cliche.

When I say it was 18 months of prolonged torture, I didn't mean that the sexual affair continued - it didn't - what I mean to be more specific is that while I was trying to recover and get safe again, he repeatedly betrayed me over and over with actions like meeting her because she said she needed closure or sending messages and so on. It was just awful and I was in so much shock and trauma that I honestly don't recall being even capable of processing what was going on.

The hard part is this: It was obvious that despite denying it, he really missed her and struggled to let go of the relationship which I have found impossible to live with. The best I can describe it is that he behaved like a crazed addict. We hadn't been together long, didn't live together, and with hindsight I have no idea why he didn't just go be with her if he had such a compulsion.

He claims he never wanted to be with her. He claims he always loved me and always told her that (she confirmed this to me directly so I know he's being honest). But I have never been able to understand why if you love one woman you would behave like that with another. It took in total probably 18 months for him to completely pull his head out of his arse and truly get the horror of it all.

Since then, it's been three and a half years and he's behaved like the model partner. He's blatantly obviously devoted, he clearly loves me deeply and this is a really steadfast thing that I am certain of - but his previous behavior makes absolutely no sense to me. He feels disgust when he thinks of her.

The fact it makes no sense makes it hard to shut down in my head. I have left for prolonged periods of time. I have, in fairness, put him through hell (not deliberately but because I was in so much pain) and he has never wavered at all. He will just wait, work at it, do whatever is needed because he says he loves me and always has.

His only explanation for it all was circumstances, and that he was temporarily insane and couldn't see what he was doing. He genuinely seems to have no idea. He maintains he never had romantic feelings for her.

The whole thing makes no sense after all these years, but there is always these nagging questions.

If he loved me, why would he do that?
If he loved me, why did he find it so hard to stop speaking to her?
If he loved me, why did he repeatedly risk our relationship just to speak to someone he said he had no feelings for?
If he loved me, why did he put my wellbeing in such jeopardy?

He is a different person now. i can't really explain that, but he can't bear me being in even the mildest discomfort for even a minute. He works hard every day, reliably and is always there no matter what. When he looked at me, his eyes light up. I see in front of me a man deeply in love.

So it remains, that I am baffled and confused over how and why any of this happened and I know deep down I will never have the answers.

I have resisted counselling I suppose because I don't see how a counsellor can ever provide me with the answers I need, and I realise nobody can.

You know that you are not crazy right? From everything you have explained his actions make no sense. I have the same questions as you have. The problem is he has not done the work on himself to be able to understand why he would risk this ‘great love’ for a woman he had no romantic feelings for. Either he is lying to himself or it’s something deep inside him that needs introspection so he can give you the answers that make sense. He’s just expects you to accept the ‘I was acting crazy don’t know what that was about’ line and because he now treats you with love and respect you think you are in the wrong for needing more.

If he truly loves you then he doesn’t want you to be in this pain. Ask him to get counselling so that when you go to couples counselling you can really work on your relationship from a place of honesty. You both want the same outcome — to move forward and be better people. Don’t let yourself get stuck. This isn’t a problem with you. His behaviour makes no sense.

Get yourself individual therapy too so you can understand what you need from him to heal.

I do think you can get through this but you both need to do the work. You can’t paper over cracks and avoid triggers.

If he loved me, why would he do that?
If he loved me, why did he find it so hard to stop speaking to her?
If he loved me, why did he repeatedly risk our relationship just to speak to someone he said he had no feelings for?
If he loved me, why did he put my wellbeing in such jeopardy?

My H said the answer to the above was because it (emotional and sexual kibbles) was just there so he took it. He knew in theory that it would hurt me, but he really just didn't consider me. I was seperate. He was shocked by how badly it did affect me. Apologises for being so selfish, would never do it again, etc.

But no matter what his answer was, it was never going to undo it. It wasn't going to give my self esteem back, nor my trust in my own judgement. I think I also need therapy for it as I've not managed to sort myself out. I just feel less.

I think you need to concentrate on individual counseling and hopefully you can find a trauma informed therapist. I agree with the suggestions to try EMDR too. You might not get answers but you get the possibility of healing and moving forward.

I see most infidelity as a form of abuse that can leave complicated trauma for the victims. He can and should do his own therapy. Without insight into his behaviour, he could repeat it.

Have you ever heard of limerence? It sounds like that’s what he had for her. I’m not excusing him but it is a type of madness and everything you are saying makes it sound like he had that. People do recover from it but it’s absolutely horrendous and awful and the worst past is that it’s inexplicable.

I think you have to make a decision, you cannot live in fear anymore. You will have to work on getting past this or you will be like one of those lads in Lord of the Rings, living half a life.

Face into it, go to therapy ( if you can) and get through this once and for all and decide to be 100% in or 100% out.

100% in means getting past this and forgiving him, giving your all to the relationship without fear.

You can do this but you need to do all the hard work in therapy to be free again.

This is your life and you need to start enjoying it. Good luck x

Thank you. I am honestly not sure what answer could ever be good enough to these questions! What answer is there that takes away that kind of pain? I just need it to make some sense.

He has given much more detailed explanations to me than I have shared here - certainly of how the affair began (ego kibbles, loneliness, alcohol) and what occurred during it and that part while completely hideous, makes sense to me and is not what haunts me for the reason that it makes sense.

It is his behavior after I found out, where he can't give me answers which add up (in my mind anyway).

He did go to counselling for two years, and the counsellor's verdict on it all was that he had a trauma bond with the AP. She felt that he was love bombed by the AP who was his overnight best friend and after hearing the details to be fair that does sound accurate. Then the theory is that once the A had begun, she began threatening to kill herself if he wouldn't see her, threatening to tell me about the A or ruin his life by exposing him and the general explanation is that this caused him behave so strangely.

This feels like a tidy explanation that doesn't give me any comfort at all. I think he is just as confused as I am. He took the counsellors story and repeats that if he's asked but I don't think he really knows what he was thinking or feeling and I am worried that he is holding something back.

My fear is that there is something deep inside him that I don't know or understand or that he felt more for her than he admitted, and it seems that if I trust this and then find out years later that I was lied to or had it wrong, that it would be like being betrayed all over again.

If I get away, then it removes that risk.

I have heard of limerence. "a specific type of involuntary, all-consuming attraction, often involving idealization of the other person and a longing for them to feel the same way"

The thing is, that while I appreciate that isn't love, it's a kind of passionate romantic infatuation. If that is what he felt for her, I want to leave.

My fear is that this is what he felt for her. If he did, then I do not want to spend my life with someone who was capable of feeling that for someone else whilst saying they were in love with me.

That isn't good enough for me.

I'd rather be alone. And deep down I guess I believe that is what he felt, despite how much he denies it, and so I feel stuck.

You can continue to stuff all those feelings rather than work through them with a therapist, but then you will also stuff all the other feelings you mention, peace, joy, excitement, hope, along with them. You can do this for as long as you like, it's an option.

I'm 49 and part of me longs to just pack a bag and walk out You can also do this, but wherever you go, there you will be.

Another option would be to deal with it, with support, and then work out what you want. Not basing that decision on him feeling panicked at the thought of losing you. That's not how this works.

"wherever you go, there you will be" is something people keep saying.

I understand that, and I don't mind.

I have had a lot of years to process everything and I understand that what happened broke me. That isn't being dramatic, I was mid forties when this happened and had experienced terrible heartbreaks and even betrayals before but this was different. It snapped me inside and what snapped isn't coming back.

I would never want another relationship, I don't want much contact at all with other people. I don't need that anymore.

I accept completely that I will be sad and lonely and that my dreams and future will be gone, but they are anyway and it's sort of sadder being here feeling that way.

I see it that I was like a dog before - sort of trusting and jolly and sociable and now I am like a cat, and going off to be alone when suferring feels much more safe. It feels odd probably to some people, but letting me do that is a kindness because other people don't feel safe to me anymore.

I don't expect to be happy. I let go of expecting that a long time ago and just like the idea of nothing and nobody reminding me of what was - what I was - and won't be again. The shame I feel is somehow tied to that.

As if I didn't do better with it all, I am not sure how to explain it.

its time to move on without him, you haven’t been able to move on with him. Get the help you need to make sense of everything, being with him right now is not helping you in anyway

I promise I’m not a EMDR therapist trying flog services I am a survivor of a very long and traumatic situation that happened to me as a child.

see if this resonates:-

I didn’t want counselling because no amount of talking therapy was going to change what really did happen to me nor was it going to remove the memories and fear. That remains my view although I may have softened slightly. What I couldn’t cope with was how the intrusive memories would appear from nowhere and slap me in the face from the weirdest of triggers. One of them was the image of the grinch - Christmas was a nightmare. Out of desperation and realising I had complex PTSD ( later confirmed by a professional) I started EMDR therapy. Over ten sessions I faced the worst of my memories head on and had them dealt with. There’s no counselling involved . It moves the memory to safe place you can choose or not choose to access but you are in control. This is how the brain normally moves traumatic memories during REM sleep but if you’ve had major trauma - which you’ve had - sleep becomes interrupted or non existent and the brain doesn’t have the chance to move the memory to a safe storage area. I can now smile wryly at the image of the grinch - something I never would have believed possible.

If you'd rather be alone then be alone. You have to accept that he did feel something for her, that she made his life better in some way at the time. That doesn't mean he doesn't love you, or regret what he did now.

Thank you, I am sorry you have this. Yes, that resonates. "I didn’t want counselling because no amount of talking therapy was going to change what really did happen to me nor was it going to remove the memories and fear". I also don't really want to forget because if I forget then I can't be prepared for it if it comes for me again. I never want to be taken by surprise.

Ultimately it's your choice if you pack a bag, withdraw all your savings and hit the road, that is an option and only you know if it's the right one for you.

I would say that you would definitely have a better chance possibly of moving on from this feeling of being "snapped inside" if you weren't faced with the cause of your distress on a daily basis.

Maybe there's a middle way? Would it be worth trying to get some professional support to find one? EMDR as mentioned being one option. Peri/menopause does come with a drive for some women for everyone to just Fuck Off and leave them alone, so that could be playing in here too. I'd certainly be arms lengthing the DH needs around this while you work it out. He wouldn't know what to do without you? I'm sure. But that's not on you to factor into your decision about how you move on.

edited to add

I can't be prepared for it if it comes for me again. I never want to be taken by surprise.

this would only be pertinent if you remained in a relationship with your DH though, surely?

Maybe it is. I am sorry I am so resistant to it. It's so many things tied together.

What if they fix me and then I am left vulnerable again?
What if saying it all out loud is too hard?
What if I don't like the answers I get?

Not to mention the process requires socialising and trusting another person which I find impossible.

I am going to be completely honest, and this will sound childish and pathetic and terrible and ridiculous but I am speaking to strangers so what difference does it make.

He was supposed to love and look after me, and he didn't. He professes his love all the time and shows it in every possible way, day in and day out. But because of the things he did then love is just not safe. It doesn't make any sense to me. It creates a cognitive dissonance in me, so life doesn't make sense anymore.

I should have left. That would have been a sad story, but it at least would have been a "right" ending.

Not when I first found out, as to be honest, I was definitely capable of moving past the cheating given the circumstances it occurred under and given the fact that I was given clear evidence he didn't have romantic feelings for her - it was more like drunk sex when lonely.

However, the very first minute that this narrative flipped and he started missing her, struggling to stop contact with her, or hurting me again when I was already suffering so much, then I should have left.

The crazy thing is, if I had done, he would have snapped out of it in about 30 seconds but I was so panicked, so confused, and he was being manipulative beyond belief. "I love you so much, I just need to close things off in a way that feels right". I am so angry at myself for being so stupid.

A big part of me feels that he just couldn't stand her hating him, her thinking him the villain so he tried to come out of it in a way he felt good about. He couldn't have cared less at that time how much it hurt me.

No matter how many years of love he gives me, no matter how much, that story can't ever be put right. When I left before (for several months), he wandered around crying at work and was a real mess and he came to see me and looked at me and said "you are everything really, I don't know how to think of a life without you being in it", and it was so heartbreaking because he really meant it and I really thought that I could just find a way to make a new start.

I have tried.

But he can't undo what he felt before, or what he said and did, and I should have left. Leaving, puts the story right in the only way I can put it right.

I think he would spend the rest of his life grieving. I think I would too. But I also think it gives the story the ending that is right and makes sense, and that is some kind of closure for me.

@GoldDuster no because if he could do this, then anybody can.

I am truly sorry OP, but someone who loves you doesn’t do the things he has done. And more than that, if he really DID love you then he would have left you himself because he would have known that you deserved better than him. He wouldn’t spend the rest of his life grieving and neither will you, the world will keep spinning and things get better.

Disclaimer: I do have a tendency to see things in black and white.

I think you're wildly overcomplicating it. You're not over it, which is perfectly normal. You can't heal with him around. You've tried. Now is the time to try it alone, imo.

'He's deeply in love with me' - sure, he might be. But he wasn't then, else even the idea of what betraying you could do to you would've felt like a stake through his heart. I know I'd rather cut off a finger than put my husband through it. And he did it for what? You don't know, cause he STILL doesn't have the decency to be honest with you.

You have so many years - good years, quality years! - left. It's such a shame to waste them on him

This.

And I'm sorry but he sounds so much like a man I know who cheated, was discovered, and discovered again, was oh so remorseful, she was so his soulmate, how could he live without her, he was so remorseful, so sorry, but quietly continued cheating. And did so until his partner finally left him.

You talk of running away. I read recently that running way is really a way of wanting to feel safe. I think at a deep level your psyche feels unsafe being in a relationship with this man, who has caused so much harm to you.

No one who causes this much harm is 'the one'.

He wanted to have his cake, the affair, and eat it too. The too is keeping you in a relationship with him because he can't bear to be the villain of the story. He's broken in a way the counseling didn't really touch. I do notice the counselor was a woman who gave him what amounts to an excuse, that he was love bombed and trauma bonded.

Possibly. But I see you as trauma bonded to him.

He broke the relationship and the break is irreparable and irrevocable. You can stay together but you don't have the foundational basics of a healthy relationship, like trust and honesty, and never will.

If he truly cared for your welfare, he would be gone. Seeing him daily just is salt in the wounds he inflicted on you. He keeps you stuck because he doesn't want to lose you. But you've lost you.

Do you know what he'd do if he really loved you? Leave you, and let you recover from his multiple betrayals without him standing over you wringing his hands, or pretending everything's fine and convincing himself (but not you) that his shitty behaviour hasn't destroyed the person you were. All his protestations mean nothing while he's watching you suffer, but it's still all about him.
All the 'why' questions you ask? The answer is always that he didn't think of you, only of himself.
I am so angry on your behalf, you sound like a great person, and this pos has sacrificed you on the altar of his ego. He's pathetic.
Wounds won't heal when they're full of dirt. He is the dirt in your wound. Clean the wound, call it a temporary separation if it makes it easier, but take time for yourself without him around. Take time to heal, the person you were, and are, and will be deserves that.
💐💐💐

Sounds like he has been trying to find a long winded way of explaining/justifying why he wanted to work out what his dick would feel like in someone else.

Short answer and not very helpful but fuck him off.

@Puzzlez You seem to actually have quite good insight into his behaviour. Probably more than him. He had spent so long compartmentalising his affair that breaking it off felt like half of him had disappeared. He knew logically that you were the person he wanted and loved but he didn’t want her to view him as a bad person. He grieved the relationship. And it was a relationship —which is something I don’t think you want to accept. But he chose your relationship so focusing on what he felt for her is pointless. If choosing you is not enough that’s totally fair — you are worth more.

It sounds like you could have got over the physical affair but not the emotional one. I understand that, it’s how I would feel too. The lies and emotional manipulation broke you.

You sound like you are an avoidant personality. When confronted with pain or the possibility of it, you run. Either inside yourself or physically remove yourself. You think this protects you but it just keeps you from living a full life. You get one chance at life. You need to prioritise your healing. Even if you choose to leave the relationship, I think the suggestion of EMR is the right thing. You owe it to yourself.

Op I believe the damage was done after the first affair, staying with him.
i believed being with him is causing damage and I think you need to leave.
that’s only my opinion. I do believe you will be happy in a life that doesn’t have you in a relationship with this man.

@Puzzlez - lots of brilliant words of wisdom above.

You have tried to put this behind you but his betrayal of you was so vast and continued so long that you can’t. If he really loved you with a selfless love, he would let you go. But his is a very selfish love.

It’s bollocks to suggest he was trauma-bonded to this woman. He was able to walk in the end which shows he could have walked much sooner. He just wasn’t ready to properly choose you. And he put you through that torture for 18 months.

That’s appalling and terribly cruel. No wonder the joy and colour have gone out of your world. He did that to you. Because for the duration of the affair and the 18 months that followed, it was more important to placate the other woman than cleave to you.

This will always be a terribly painful and sad episode for you. But I believe that once you escape him and put him completely behind you, painful as that will be, you will start to be able to feel joy and experience life again. It will take a while and you may need intensive therapy or EMDR but you will get there.