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

Why can't you take your judgement hats off and just answer the question the Op has asked! Most of these posts are just judgy assumptions with no actual help or support offered - shame on you all if the Op is not male!

I do agree with Preloved about the OP enjoying the thread too much.

I can't read the damn thing, the text is all fuzzy! Like someone's blown up a thumbnail.

But you didn’t actually follow your own advice or moral code that you have set out in your flow diagram? Thank goodness you made a diagram now so you know the right way to behave towards some one you love. Maybe make a list of things you shouldn’t do to remember too e.g. don’t lie, cheat, take away their autonomy, destroy their self esteem etc.

You don’t seem to have any insight into the damage you have caused to your partner. If you did maybe you would go on a holiday that you didn’t particularly want to in order to show you are prioritising them because you understand the damage you have done them as a person. You asked if reconciliation can work with therapy. I hope for your partner it does not as I have never heard such selfish drivel dressed up as ‘facts’.

And if you must know, the betrayed partner wanted to go on this holiday, which the betrayer was very explicit about not wanting to go on because it is stressful to do with young children, and volunteered to take the children with them.

Maybe this is part of the problem, he wants to go on holiday with the children, and you have explicitly said you won't do 'find it too stressful' so they have had to go without you.. doesn't sound like you are prepared to meet their needs OR your children's needs.

You are SPECTACULARLY failing to acknowledge that they may have issues/needs within the relationship that aren't being met too, which has led to the breakdown and connection between you over time.. all you seem to see is your own side and how THEY should change to meet your needs, saying you didn't realise how much an affair would hurt them is just another example of how you only think about yourself and your own needs.

Saying the betrayed wants to "stay together" is completely different to acknowledging that the betrayed doesn't want to split up the family.

I think we know the answer to that.

I have not been in contact with the affair partner in over 4 weeks. The last time we spoke, I informed him how this has affected my husband, that I never would have interacted with him as much as I did if I knew the extent of those effects before I did it, and that he should stay tf away from married women. I was honestly a little pissed off when he texted me last week, because obviously he didn’t respect that. (Did not respond.)

The affair was about 6 weeks long and ended before anything became physical. I mourned it and am over it. DH did find that brief mourning period difficult (I did try to keep it to myself so it wouldn’t affect him, but he sensed my mood and questioned me about it until I told him.)

Again, unhappiness in a relationship doesn’t justify cheating, and I have zero desire to ever put DH through this again. I do love him and I do respect him. You cannot tell others how they feel with any sort of accuracy or authority, as you are not them.

Plenty of people have given heartfelt and authentic answers. OP would do well to abandon the argumentativeness and embrace the advice to acknowledge the profound hurt their actions caused.

(I still think based on all the evidence 100% he's a man but people are free to take the word of someone who is dishonest enough to cheat on their spouse and not brave enough to own their actions on an anonymous internet forum)

Why are you calling it an affair if nothing physical happened?

What did actually happen for you to actually describe it as 'an affair'?

I have no right to correct people when they’re insistent they know what I believe better than I do? Alright.

Now it's your affair partners fault for not staying away from married [people]? And you haven't blocked them? Much responsibility! Very trust!

I pity OP, to have so little foresight that you weren’t sure that having an affair would put a bomb in your marriage.

All the “you don’t know how painful a tattoo is” is just a deflection, because you haven’t brought your marriage for a more painful than expected tattoo, you’ve done GBH and put it in the hospital for the foreseeable. And that was completely foreseeable - getting divorced is a very very normal reaction to discovering infidelity. You are very lucky to have not already received your marching orders.

You seem to be positioning your actions as “A Cry for Help” affair, and I am at a loss to see how you can square that with your actions with your affair partner: did they know they were just filling a hole in your life, or were you lying there too?

The reason people are getting frustrated with you is because they see how much you are trying to be “A good person who did a bad thing”, and they really aren’t so sure.
I think what people find extra frustrating is that you seem to be saying “I as the betrayer just need to not cheat, whilst the betrayed person needs to pull her socks up and starting meeting my needs in the relationship.” Can you understand why that might come across very badly?
If she wasn’t good enough before the affair, why would she believe that you think she’s good enough now?

I have unfortunately had experience of this. I was the cheated on partner and it was wholly devastating to me and I became very unwell.

We are still together 18 months after the affair discovery and are doing OK...I think it is too early to tell what the future holds as I now know that affair recovery is measured in years not weeks.

What has got us this far is that we engaged in specialst affair recovery therapy not just couples counselling. It was extremely difficult but necessary and we also both had separate individual therapy. My husband was 100% remorseful and engaged fully with what i needed to consider staying together including leaving his job.

We are still actively engaged in recovery work and it will take a long time but there are enough reasons for me to stay as long as we both remain committed to doing the work.

So the guy you had the affair with its his fault and its the fault of your hubby as he ignored you and you want a counsellor everything will be ok, the counsellor will encourage you to look at your accountability and you dont want that....you say you respect your husband no you bloody dont!!!

Yeah no, I’m pretty sure he just assumed caring for the children the ways I usually do on holiday wouldn’t be as stressful for him as I find it (and maybe it shouldn’t be, with the other family members there to help) and decided to go take the holiday he wanted to take. Surprise, surprise… caring for the children there is still stressful in all the exact ways I told him it usually is. 🙃

No I don’t think so. One of my XP cheated early on in the first year of the relationship. Not technically cheating in some people’s eyes but I found out he was messaging woman on tinder, I highly presume he cheated as I was away often with work so he would have had many chances.

Stupidly I gave him a second chance and went on to marry him (I was young and stupid at the time). However the trust never rebuilt. I always had a gut feeling he would go and do it again. When we argued, I would bring up the tinder incident. Low and behold, he left his emails on my laptop once and I found he had been downloading tinder while we were married.

Looking back, I regret ever giving him a second chance (apart from having dc who I wouldn’t change for the world).

I am a very stubborn person and hold a grudge so maybe that’s just me. However from experience when you give them a free pass once, they will do it again.

I knows of two marriages where one spouse complains they don’t feel desired and don’t feel a connection.

In marriage 1, it was the DH who complained about the lack of sex, the feeling of not being desired, the lack of closeness and connection. However he ignored the reason. The DW felt run ragged, carried all the mental load, worked full time, did 80% of the child care, 90% of the housework and 100% of the mental load. The DH pursued his hobbies and social life. DW was resentful and exhausted. She tried over the years to get him to support her and step up, but he made every conversation into a conversation about the lack of sex. He never took an interest into why she didn’t desire him. Answer: because he was selfish and acted like a teenager = not sexy! But he only wanted to talk about his needs not being met and he had no interest in finding out why or what her experience of the marriage was. They are divorced.

In marriage 2 it is the DW who complains about the lack of closeness and how she doesn’t feel desired. Again though she takes no interest in why that might be the case. She complains about DH at every opportunity and isn’t very nice to him. She blames him for anything and everything. He has stopped spending time with her as he is fed up of the constant fault finding and criticism. She blames him for not spending enough time with her, but she never asks why. He has no desire for closeness anymore and has given up on the physical part of their marriage. She also blames him for that.

So it doesn’t really matter if the OP is male or female really. What matters is why the other spouse doesn’t desire them. Why they don’t want closeness. What drives them to have emotionally and physically detached? Because it will likely be the “betrayer” who has caused this. Everything in OP’s posts point to a complete lack of empathy for the needs of the betrayed, be they male or female. Everything is focused on their own experience. Their reasons for the betrayal (as opposed to the reasons why the other party has detached from them). A flowchart detailing the betrayer’s experience (as opposed to the reasons for betrayed not wanting a physical relationship). Other than the spouse wanting OP to come on this holiday (and them refusing: another showing of lack of empathy, lack of meeting spouse’s needs), there is no reference to the experience of the betrayed spouse or their needs at all. Instead OP has spent their time arguing, rationalising and making flowcharts. To me this strongly suggests OP is a man, but ultimately it matters not. What matters is that they seem not to possess the required level of soul searching and empathy which would be required to come back from infidelity. Which I guess answers their question!

I don’t need to repeatedly explain to DH why I didn’t understand the severity of the effects of cheating, having never experienced it or cheated before. He heard me say it the first time and he believes me.

Thank you for sharing this. It gives me a lot of hope.

Well its not her fault is it its her husbands and the other man, not my fault at all, so shes played with 2 men and now is blaming this man for contacting her still, hes single yet you blame him for going after a married women, you must have hidden charms thats all i can say

He doesn’t, not really. (if you’re female, which I’m doubtful about).

Honestly, it’s the calm before the storm.

The break with others, will very likely make him see sense.

Again: other people trying to tell me that they know how I feel about my spouse better than me IS gaslighting, and it’s incredibly ironic that pushing back against that gaslighting is labeled as gaslighting by… wait for it… the same people who are doing the gaslighting themselves!!!

I know that I love DH, and that I never stopped loving him, even when I was having the affair. Nobody will convince me otherwise.

Ok so you loved your spouse throughout. Amazing.

But if you want your marriage to survive, don’t get your stupid flow chart out. That is the biggest load of BS I have seen for quite some time.

Why is the assumption that I am not trying to understand the damage I’ve done? I’m living with the partner I cheated on. I see the consequences and how it’s affecting him, and I am experiencing the damaged relationship. And it’s almost humorous that you think that phrasing would have gone over any differently here.

You sound so full of yourselves when you say shit like this, honestly 🙄

More fool him then, he must be desperate to not split up, maybe for the children's sake. Hopefully he uses this time apart to reflect on his options.

You don't have to have been punched in the face to know that punching someone in the face will hurt them, so all your bullshit about not realising how hurtful it would be are just complete delusions and excuses. I can't believe you actually said that to his as some sort of explanation.. it's probably the most insulting thing you could have said.

You aren't sorry you had an affair, you are sorry you got caught and are trying to blame everyone else but take responsibility.

I feel sorry for him and sorry for your children.

All you seem capable of doing is talking about YOUR experience.

You have explained YOUR reasons for cheating (your needs were not being met).

You have explained how YOU feel about your cheating. (You didn’t realise how it would feel and how catastrophic it could be).

You have explained how YOU love your spouse.

You’ve give us YOUR definition of love.

You have talked about YOUR needs.

You have talked about YOUR reasons for not going on this holiday with your family.

You have made a flowchart showing YOUR experience or rather what someone in YOUR position is faced with.

I do hope you can do better than this in real life.