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

The OP is a woman who has cheated on her husband

I met the affair partner and slowly, unexpectedly developed feelings for them. The conversations progressed from platonic to flirting and eventually to sexting, and it lasted for about 6 weeks. I attempted to make plans to meet with him in person to have sex (though I have doubts about whether that was actually going to come to fruition, and I was leaning towards ending it with AP at the time DH discovered the affair.) AP and I haven’t actually had any physical contact with one another other than a hug the last time we saw one another in the middle of July.

Nobody here asked about what DH was feeling prior to the affair and why we were disconnected.

He told me he desires me so much, but that he thought that an indifferent attitude about wanting sex with me made me more attracted to him (as in, it would have made him seem less desperate and like he is the one “in control” of how much sex we have… sounds toxic, I know, but it’s not an entirely inaccurate premise.)

He said he felt connected to me as long as we were physically present and spending time with one another, and didn’t know I needed conversation to feel connected. He said the way his mind works, he is often having several thoughts at once and has trouble grasping one of them and verbalizing it, and that he often doesn’t feel the need to do so. He often goes internal (is that a phrase that means something to other people ?) when he is thinking about work or something stressful, which results in him sitting in silence, thinking. He didn’t know I wanted him to share his thoughts with me, or why I kept asking him “what are you thinking?” and didn’t understand when I tried telling him I was craving conversation.

If you read the full thread, you will realise that many of us believe that the Op is actually the husband.

Yes - I got it. Hadn't realised it was such a long thread! ;)

I don't have personal experience of it but I am close with one couple who managed to recover from it and even strengthened their marriage in the process. This was because the cheating was related to the husband's severe porn and sex addiction, and his wife wanting to leave was his rock bottom which allowed him to admit his problem and commit to a multi-pronged recovery program involving 12-step meetings, addiction based therapy as well as therapy to heal from his traumatic childhood, a psychiatrist, and giving his wife time and space away from him to heal from her betrayal trauma.

I also know two other couples whose marriages could not survive it.

I'm sure there are studies and articles you could look for on the subject and get an idea of the stats.

Personally I think you can't generalise as each couple will be different. It will all be dependent on factors like individual personalities, psychological issues, communication levels, ethics and values, past traumas, sex/drug/porn addictions, age, experience, wisdom or lack thereof, whether there is emotional/financial/physical/sexual abuse in the relationship, and so much more.

I'd expect that the cheater would need to fully understand and acknowledge the harm done, and demonstrate that they are willing to do everything within their power to rebuild trust. The steps taken to repair the relationship would need to be individualised to each couple's specific circumstances. Individual and joint counselling would likely be necessary in most cases.

So you are the cheater but unknown if you are actually a woman.

I think it's possible.

I think I understand the reson for posting now, it's containment, damage limitation, contolling your poor partner.

If I've read this right only your own mother knows, and your h has been taken on holiday with your family, it sounds like you are trying to isolate him from other influences or support.
Your mother is acting as a flying monkey trying to contain his mood and support you.
No wonder you are thinking twice about councelling, you are afraid of this secret getting out or your h escaping your control.

You are running scared, you don't care about him just your reputation.

I imagine a flow chart like that might look like:

does your wife want to go on holiday with you?
> no
> why?
> she feels stressed out in that particular location
> why?
> it makes child minding difficult

then the following options:

• go alone and do the child minding yourself
• go without her and bring family members to assist with child minding (though I really think the family members’ presence are incidental, in this case)
• pick somewhere else that you both want to go
• don’t go on holiday (probably followed up with a frowny face shape).”

You are not the only poster to think OP sounds autistic. The obsessive focus on their own perspective, relentlessness in repeating their perspective over and over again to try to get others to agree, almost complete lack of emotion or focus on what their spouse is going through.

Right, I behaved immorally and I shouldn’t have cheated. That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time, but people were insisting that I believe my cheating was justified because I had unmet needs, despite explaining repeatedly that I’m not justifying it and I do not believe that at all. Then they called me a narcissist and a manipulator because I didn’t agree with their assumptions about my own beliefs, because obviously they know me better than I know myself! (Is that not insane???)

You've made it clear that you're not justifiying the cheating OP so I don't think there's much point stating that again.

It sounds like your relationship with your DH was in a pretty bad place before the cheating. Do you think it's possible to solve the issues you were having up to that point?

@TreadingTrepidatious without counting, I’d say there’s probably less than 10% of the posts here actually trying to help, and the rest attacking you. I’d be tempted , if you can, to ignore the 90+%, they’ll only sap your mental energy. I’d probably agree with those who’ve already diagnosed you with ASD, just means your head is wired a bit differently and your responses just don’t fit with their expectations.

Exactly this.

But again, you see, I was writing this from the pov of your spouse (assuming them to be the wife), whereas you have AGAIN written this from YOUR pov (with you as the wife).

So perhaps mine would be better phrased as “Does your spouse support you (eg Will they come with you on a with holiday you and the kids even if they don’t like the destination?)”

And what you have done is rephrased this so it is AGAIN centred around your needs with YOU as the central character “Do I want to go on holiday with my spouse?”

And your response to your own question about your needs is “no I don’t want to go on this holiday as I find it stresses me out”

You are so egocentric you can’t even see what you’ve done.

Then you have listed your spouse’s options in response to your refusal to accompany them on this holiday. All the options are how they should abandon the holiday, or choose a holiday YOU would like to go on, or go with other people instead. There is no option where you put their needs first and agree to their request, as it doesn’t work for YOU! The fact they went anyway means they really wanted to go. Oh how righteous you must have felt telling us all in one of your earlier posts how your spouse was finding it stressful, just as you said they would! Given you cheated on your spouse, could you not have been a bit more flexible and give them what they wanted even if you knew it would be a shit show. Being a good partner isn’t about being rigid, or proving how right you are. It’s about doing things against your better judgement because it would mean a lot to your spouse. It’s about not saying I told you so, even if you’re thinking it. You remind me of an autistic person I know who is totally focused on their own egocentric needs, has zero flexibility, zero empathy, enjoys arguing, enjoys being right and pointing out how right they are.

At no point is there an option which says “spouse sucks it up and goes on holiday with you and the kids to keep you happy/because you asked them to/because they want to support you?” Simply not an option for you, is it?

Yes - spouse is capable of putting their own needs to the back to support you and is a good partner

No - spouse is rigid and inflexible and puts their own needs first

Ignoring that you seem to think parents are obligated to take their children to specific places that especially stressful because it is difficult to care for them there…

I am very much open to hearing about DH needs any time he wishes to express them, and I’m generally willing to do whatever it takes to make sure they are met. (Yes, I acknowledge I failed to meet his need for safety and security when I had an affair. That was discussed already.)

As I said before, because we are staying together BOTH of us need to make sure we are meeting EACH OTHER’s needs.

It seems to me that a lot of people seem to think that my needs no longer matter because I’ve cheated, and that DH isn’t required to put in any effort in his part to fix the aspects of the relationship I was struggling with prior to and during the affair. I think this would make sense if he was deciding to walk away from the marriage, but he isn’t. It makes sense to me that we would work on things to make our marriage better, not leave it in disrepair. And I am grateful that we are doing that.

Why didnt you block the ap? Have you told your husband that the ap reached out recently? In case it's not immediately obvious to you - you really should.

OP, if you are so certain that you are staying together, what do you want from this thread? A suitable couples counsellor in real life is what you need now.

This

It seems strange to me that you wouldn't mind that much if your husband cheated on you. This is quite an unusual attitude, I think. I, and most of the people I know, would be devastated if our partners were unfaithful. I wonder if it means you are polyamorous? Which would come with a whole new set of concerns.

Part of the recovery process is to repair first. Your needs have to come second until he feels safe and secure.
Any book you read on affair recovery will tell you this. You're less than a month in and and already you've stepped out of an opportunity to connect as a family on a holiday - I get it's not one you wanted to go on but it's a clear message to him that he still isn't a priority for you.
I'm not suggesting you have to do everything he asks, grovel to him until he reaches forgiveness but he comes first for now if you really want to repair things.
Once he's over the shock and and has had a chance to really gather his thoughts (that'll take a few months at least) then you can start building the foundations of your new marriage taking into account what both of you want and need.
Right now you need to accept that you ended the marriage you had. He is devastatingly hurt and needs to be cared for. Your job right now is to hold space for his pain, sit through it with him, listen to him and answer his questions. Show him you are 100% there for him. It's not the time for you to be making demands about what you need. It'll sound like 'if you don't do these things for me I'll do it again '

I’m out. OP if your poor spouse needs support please direct them to the many support threads for partners of those with ASD. Trying to get someone who has one lens (focused on themselves) to see a different perspective is exhausting. Despite having cheated and refusing to accompany their family on holiday as they don’t like the destination, still the OP is talking about their needs not being met. Holy cow!!!!!

If she's never had any experience of it before, and has only the cheater's perspective, she might be inclined to think it's not such a big deal because she knows she still loves her husband and the AP was never going to actually replace him in her mind.

Or, she might just naturally not see it as that big a deal. Some people just don't, even when it happens to them.

Or, I suppose if she doesn't actually love him then yes, she probably wouldn't be too bothered by what he does.

This is a moral question I’ve chewed on for a long time. I have ultimately decided that the partnered person in an affair has a greater duty to their partner to prevent the infidelity, but that the affair partner also bears at least some of the responsibility. The argument can be made that if no potential affair partner knowingly interacted in a way that violates boundaries with any potential cheater, then the cheaters would not be able to cheat and a large amount of infidelity would be prevented.

In my particular case, I did not go seeking an affair, and I did not go seeking the initial interactions with the affair partner. He knew I was married. He repeatedly sought me out and engaged me in conversation until we developed feelings for one another, and then reciprocated the flirting and sexting. Yes, I should have recognized when those feelings were developing sooner and elected to stop interacting with him. But I do not think he is entirely innocent here, either, and I was hoping that describing to him the effects of my cheating would discourage him from engaging with married women in the future.

Your needs since you had an affair are secondary to everyone else’s, your spouse, your children.

It seems to me you don’t acknowledge that?

it is so totally irrelevant whether the ap is guilty or innocent. The question that has been asked repeatedly and that you have ignored repeatedly is why you have not blocked and deleted them as stage 1 of showing that you wont go back there?