Has anyone successfully recovered from infidelity with couple’s therapy?

[TreadingTrepidatious]

Infidelity was discovered within my marriage last night, and we have an appointment with a marriage counselor on the 24th (which feels like forever away!). Just wondering if it’s helped anyone to get their marriage back to a good place, and if you’d be willing to talk about the process. Thanks in advance

Just a point of order, not looking for any more discussion; It most certainly is not textbook gaslighting. It's not gaslighting at all. Gaslighting is denying something another person has experienced, something you have personal knowledge is actually true, (usually because it involves something you did) and telling that person s/he is imagining things, is crazy, etcetera.
Nobody here has personal knowledge of anything about your life. You can't deny somebody's lived experience when you don't even know what that experience is because you don't know what is true and what is false in what the person is saying. Nobody has said you are crazy and just imagining things either. People are saying, however, that they believe you are being deceptive. "I don't believe A. I believe B." is not gaslighting, even when it's about your alleged lived experience. Nobody is obligated to believe you and they aren't "sick" because they don't. That is likely a sense of entitlement which is speaking for you.

@TreadingTrepidatious - my marriage survived infidelity… it was a long and arduous journey but we have made it to other side.

Again, there are people who think war is “horrible” and that people still need to “man up” and volunteer to experience it in order to defend their country. They will vote for war mongers and send their teenaged sons away to the military, and they don’t realize what a mistake that was until their son has committed suicide as a direct consequence of PTSD. It’s only then that it occurs to them that maybe they shouldn’t have done that.

”Songs, poems, and films” are media, dear.

People can become more empathetic with greater experience. If you experience motherhood or interact with a struggling new mother you become more empathetic towards new mothers. If you experience war or interact with PTSD-addled veterans, you become more empathetic towards veterans and war-fighters. If you experience infidelity or interact with someone who was cheated on, you become more empathetic towards the victims of infidelity. Etc. Etc. I don’t think this is that crazy of a concept.

What points, exactly, are you making? Can you summarize that for me?

I think you need to take in the mirror.

Now you are gaslighting about gaslighting. Cool.

Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity. Over time, a gaslighter’s manipulations can grow more complex and potent, making it increasingly difficult for the victim to see the truth.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/gaslighting

Songs, books, movies, and other types of media tell stories. They give accounts of feelings, experiences, memories, etc., including, as you’ve stated, accounts of cheating. But we are lost in the semantic weeds; the point is that somebody who is not concerned about cheating is likely not paying attention to media detailing the consequences of cheating.

If you do not wish to continue talking to me, why don’t you stop replying? Methinks it’s because you can’t admit that you’ve misconstrued everything I’ve said and you feel the intense urge to put me down in order to avoid doing so. So again, I would invite you to elaborate, concisely, on what exactly these “points” are that you’re supposedly making, if you so feel inclined.

My spouse and I do not communicate disrespectfully like that.

Oh OP. You're clueless.
Your wife is not pleased that you didn't want to go on a family holiday because parenting can be stressful and you believe you should never have to make sacrifices for your kids. You're not passing a test of trustworthiness. She will never trust you again.
You're failing the test of being supportive and caring. She's away licking her wounds and getting support from people who care about her.
She's going to divorce you, I'd bet my house on it.

With that being said, I believe it is a married person’s obligation to ensure one’s spouse’s needs needs are met to the best of their ability. A good partner will not only meet more basic needs, like safety and security, but also the higher needs, like feeling desired and connected to the other. These are important aspects of feeling loved, but it is possible to still love somebody and not meet those needs for them.

so basically, by explaining your "belief", what you're saying is that the person you betrayed didn't meet your needs so you had to get those needs met elsewhere. In the future, if your needs are not being met again, what's to stop you getting those needs met elsewhere again?

The point is, We. Are. Staying. Together. you say that with absolute certainty. Sorry to say - life isn't that certain, as the betrayed found out....

by the way Maslow's Hierarchy has been widely discredited for taking a heavily Western-centric and privileged view of human needs. To your very point, the Needs pyramid is constructed in such a way that you have to go up through each step in the pyramid before reaching self-actualisation. There are many cultures that doesn't value elements of the Hierarchy in the same way, nor place the same importance to them, hence someone in a different culture may not have all the security, creature comforts, love etc, yet they are able to self-actualise. Stating that humans can only self-actualise if they've met all the other stages is a privileged and arrogant view of humankind - but it lives on because Western culture is very arrogant.

The OP has previously stated that they are a woman and their partner is a man.

Your refusal to say who cheated and who didn't makes it very difficult for posters to respond appropriately. Your responses are tricksy, almost like an intellectual exercise where you are enjoying sparring with posters. Posters like to know who and what they are dealing with when they give advice, otherwise it just seems pointless.

If you are the betrayed spouse, I really don't know why you would go to such lengths to hide it. The advice on the Relationships board is much less knee-jerk and much more nuanced than on AIBU and even if posters do think that you should LTB, often due to personal experience, they still give lots of sensible advice and empathy. The best advice is pretty much always from posters who have been in the same position as the OP and really want to give the OP the benefit of their experiences. As people don't know what your position actually is, they can't do this.

As for venomous assumptions, Mumsnet posters generally don't really like cheaters, particularly ones who try and justify their actions. As you might be one of these people, some people are responding accordingly.

I would have gone pretty much ANYWHERE else than where my spouse went on holiday. We’ve been discussing this for months, prior to the affair even happening. I do not enjoy going there, we’ve gone there all together four times already, and I do not think it unreasonable whatsoever to decide not to go again this time.

I make plenty of sacrifices for our kids, and this is a holiday that my spouse wanted to go one, not the kids. I assure you, they will be just fine for three days with one of their parents, their aunts, and their grandmother to look after them. My spouse also has the opportunity to take solitary staycations whenever I take the children on holidays alone. We don’t hold these things against each other.

I am home doing housework, not cheating.

We are doing well and neither of us want a divorce.

WTF have I walked in to?

You are not following this conversation in its entirety, which I think is why you’re not able to summarize what I’m saying correctly.

Somebody asked how we were doing.

I responded that we are doing well, working to rebuild trust, and that the betrayed is putting in a lot of effort to meet the betrayer’s needs.

Somebody responded to that, basically saying that the betrayed doesn’t need to meet the betrayer’s needs.

I responded that spouses need to meet each other’s needs, including those basic needs of safety and security (i.e., being faithful and not breaking their trust) and higher needs of love and belonging (I.e. making them feel desired and connected through conversation, in our case.)

That in no way implies that I am endorsing that a spouse resorts to cheating to get those needs met. I have said SO MANY TIMES that cheating is not justifiable. I have even made a whole FLOWCHART to outline exactly what I think a spouse with unmet needs ought to do.

I’m neither reading nor responding to the rest of what you wrote.

When you have seen images of the war in Ukraine, particularly at the beginning of the conflict, and the images coming out of Gaza with starving children and children with missing limbs, does it ever upset and move you to the point of tears? Can you not imagine how you would feel if something that terrible happened to one of your children? Have you never had that gut churning feeling about anything at all or have you just sailed through life with no problems and no upsetting experiences so you haven't developed any empathy at all? It sounds as though you are physically and emotionally incapable of putting yourself in someone else's shoes, and you probably need therapy to deal with that.

Oh, I stand corrected. Your marriage is doing well. Infidelity - that was over a month ago and you've both worked through it, she trusts you, and she doesn't want to divorce you. It's so great that you know so well what's in your wife's mind OP.

That act dropped when he went away and made a flowchart to mansplain why he had to cheat.

All of OP's posts are drivel, and that was thrown in to try swing the replies.

He is a man. His wife, who he cheated on, now wants time away from him with the children and her support system. He's even had plenty to say about that too.

I hope she gets the time to reflect being away from him and with her support network, as it must he hell living with OP.

no its not,both are exactly the same thing

Well you've obviously just outed yourself as the betrayer:

'The betrayer is home catching up on household tasks that are difficult to stay on top of when the children are home.'

Was that deliberate? Do the siblings and mum of the spouse that are going on holiday with them know about your marriage 'difficulties'? If so, how have they reacted?

So much judgement here! I think it’s entirely your choice to decide whether to stay or go…
I think you can recover as a couple in certain circumstances and with work. You need to rebuild the trust, better than before, and the person who cheated needs to understand why they cheated and solve that problem within the relationship. Everyone’s needs must be met and trust rebuilt. I would say the most important thing re counselling is that both people need to go with a completely open mind and take things very slowly; a lot of understanding and tolerance is needed on both sides. good luck x

Someone has made a flow chart to justify their affair 🤷‍♀️

Your flow diagram doesn’t cover what happened. The options are ‘accept the unmet needs’ or ‘leave the relationship’. But the unmet needs were met (by someone else) and no one left the relationship.

I know right. 😂

I think this OP is trying to one up the parking threads.

Which can be just as ridiculous.

The vast majority of people can easily imagine the horror of war, will be emotionally affected by stories about other people, and can put themselves in the shoes of, for example, a grieving parent or spouse. The same applies for cheating. We don’t need to experience it to understand the pain it causes, because we have empathy.

Why is it so unfathomable to you that someone would be unable to put themselves “in another person’s shoes” when it comes to this traumatic thing with which they have no experience?
People who lack empathy (being able to put yourself in another person’s shoes) to the extent you’re describing usually have a significant personality disorder of some variety. If you google narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy you’ll see your experience of being unable to empathise (and your preoccupation with your ‘needs’) described under these.

At this point, I’m entirely convinced that you are the person who cheated in this situation. But, in the vanishingly unlikely event that you are a wife dealing with the aftermath of your husband’s selfish choices - if you genuinely believe that your husband should get any kind of a pass for being “naive” about the consequences of his actions: you are being manipulated, you should pause the couples therapy, and seek individual therapy instead.