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

Nobody asked me about DH’s needs, so why would I talk about them? That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in them. PPs asked about my reasons for cheating, and I answered them. Again, that’s how conversation works. Going off on somebody for responding honestly to a question that they were asked is psycho behavior.

People like you are insistent upon things about me and my marriage and my beliefs that aren’t true, but if I have to correct you over and over, or attempt to defend myself that’s “tunnel vision” and “a strong need to be right?” No, dear, I have a strong need to be understood, and you aren’t getting what I’m saying, and that’s evident in the fact that you summarizing what I’m saying incorrectly, and you refuse to believe me when I tell you what I mean. I cannot even comprehend arguing with someone over what it is that they themselves mean!

How can anyone trust literally ANYTHING you’re saying? You better be careful, or you’ll set your house on fire with all the gaslighting you’re doing.

My god you really do not get it, do you?

You had an affair. And in light of that you should have given your spouse what they wanted and demonstrated you could put their needs first.

But you didn’t. You made them choose a different option which didn’t go against your needs.

You saying “oh well, I’ve taken the kids away on my own before when he didn’t want to come” only shows the transactional nature in which you view things which only cements my opinion you are likely autistic. I am sorry I am having to spell this out to you, but this comparison is useless. It isn’t helpful to say “they chose x before so now I’m choosing x this time too”.

The situation is NOT THE SAME! Your husband had not just had an affair FFS! You want to fix your marriage, then own what you’ve done. Stop trying to be right. Stop putting your needs first. You had the chance to show you could step up and be selfless and you ignored it and instead said “I’ve taken the kids away without them before so it’s their turn now” and thereby showing your husband and everyone on here how you think. Equity is more important to you than anything else it seems.

Now is not the time to demand equity. Now is the time to make it up to your husband in any way you can. I’m not sure you’re capable.

‘DH and I have both been APs in the past, if I’m being honest, and I used to believe that none of the responsibility or immorality fell on me, because I was not the cheating person. But I’ve engaged in debates with other people on the subject (long before the affair) and they changed my mind about it. So it is something I like to talk about, when the subject arises.’

So let me get this right, you’ve engaged in long discussions about affairs and responsibility but none of these discussions included the trauma and hurt that infidelity causes because you just didn’t know when you cheated on your primary partner.

I’m sorry but surely even the few supporters on here who laugh at the vitriol must be raising eye brows now.

tbh this new revelation really does paint a picture of a woman desperate for male approval, you feed off it, you engaged as an AP in cheating and now as the cheat for the same reason… you love validation and ego kibbles. It feeds your ego. You need to work on healthier ways of doing that. My husband was similar, he had to address that…

It’s really sad to rely on external sources of validation.

Classic DarVo to claim gaslighting at every corner!! I’m not gaslighting you. You don’t understand what it means. I‘m not going to respond to you again. Your need to be right and have the last word is ridiculous. You can patronise me all you like, dear, but you sound like a classic narcissist. Your husband deserves so much better and I only hope his family help him see that your behaviour is abusive and downright awful.

Good day to you madam.

@TreadingTrepidatious I think you’ve well and truly jumped the shark now. At least I hope so, because if this is real you truly are a piece of work.

"How can anyone trust literally ANYTHING you’re saying? You better be careful, or you’ll set your house on fire with all the gaslighting you’re doing."

DARVO. Very transparent.

I knew you were the cheater on page 3.

You said the AP pursued you and you were now on a moral quest to correct him.

And why is it that you would “not touch a married person with a barge pole?” Is that because you would be disgusted with them for even being open to cheating, or because enabling their cheating and the betrayal of their partner is wrong and you feel a moral obligation not to do that? (Both, perhaps?)

Neither. I don't want to share someone who has committed themselves to another. I want the whole person and would not lower myself to take scraps. I am worth more. I am not responsible for another's bad choices.

I did not say that APs have an obligation to prevent cheating, necessarily.
They have a moral obligation to not enable cheating, and if every potential AP refused to knowingly enable cheaters, a lot of infidelity would be effectively prevented. They are complicit in the affairs of people they know are taken.

They are under NO moral obligation to stop YOU from cheating on your spouse. That is 100% on YOU. End of.

Again, I’m not blaming DH for my actions. I am not shifting blame or responsibility off of myself. I am, however, putting additional blame on AP for his part in all of this.

But you ARE blaming your husband, you have stated a few times that he didn't converse with you in a way that satisfied you which is what made you cheat. There are several examples but this one in particular came to mind:
It was ultimately a failure in communication between us— the betrayed sensed that something was wrong/off and withdrew even further, and the betrayer interpreted that as a sign that their needs would never get met by their spouse, so the betrayer gave up prematurely and turned to the affair.

And you ARE blaming your AP, apparently he should have stayed away from you so you weren't subjected to temptation?! So therefore he must accept "Additional blame"? What even is that? Stop twisting and turning, look yourself in the mirror and accept there is only one place to put 100% of the blame. No ifs, no buts, no convoluted stories.

The debates weren’t about the extent of the hurt that results from cheating, other than “this ‘hurts’ the partners cheated on.” They were about whether APs are behaving immorally. Again, I knew cheating would “hurt” DH; I wasn’t aware just how much.

Also, I wasn’t the kind of AP who got off on “stealing” men from their partners and “winning” or anything like that. I just did not care if they were married, and I thought it was only on them if they were cheating.

I think that DH’s validation is enough for me, but I just wasn’t receiving it. I think everyone wants external validation at least sometimes.

@TreadingTrepidatious
Also, I wasn’t the kind of AP who got off on “stealing” men from their partners and “winning” or anything like that. I just did not care if they were married, and I thought it was only on them if they were cheating.

So when you were the AP, you were not at fault, and it was all on the married person but after chatting to friends and your husband your mind was changed and you decided that actually the AP has the responsibility to stop the married person from cheating. That's mighty convenient wouldn't you say?

See, the thing about the situation with AP was that I wasn’t trying to seduce him. Like I said, I didn’t go looking for an affair or seeking out conversation with him; he kept finding me and sitting with me to talk for hours and hours, without me even doing the thing where I turn on the charm. It felt like he liked me for the real me, when I wasn’t masking.That’s part of the reason why it was hard to let him go; the connection was so easy and natural-feeling, and I don’t just “click” with a lot of people like that. I could be as weird and real as I wanted, and talk about my niche interests, and he just vibed with it.

And then DH found out, of course.

I think you made a deliberate choice to misunderstand my points as has been your way all the way through this thread.

Responsibility for affairs and the pain they cause cannot be discussed in silos of each other so frankly put, I don’t believe you, I believe you believe what you say but I think the reality has been in front of you but cognitive dissonance is powerful stuff. I think the truth is you yourself don’t believe you’d be hurt so despite hearing contrary opinions you believe everyone to be the same as yourself. This is something we’ve seen throughout this thread.

I don’t believe you wanted to steal the betrayed men away from their primary partner, I don’t have you down as a mate poacher, I do however see a woman who values the attention other men bestow on her and taken men are (according to a great deal of psychological research) seen to be of higher value, so the validation they provide would be seen as higher value to someone who thrives on it.

I think your need for validation and ego kibbles trumps all logic for you. It’s not healthy, it’s not the way safe partners behave and it’s led (in part) to your affair.

I really think you need to get yourself onto surviving infidelity and the wayward thread. You’d be pulled apart there but it might genuinely help in the long run. You do need individual counselling and if your relationship counsellor is any good they will call time on that and ask you to do that first.

No no no. When I was an AP, I was partially at fault for others’ infidelity, because again, I was complicit. Same with DH when he was one, and same with my AP. The debates that changed my mind happened way after my time as an AP, and way before my own affair.

I wouldn’t usually be this harsh, but you posted because your husband is devastated about your affair, you wanted to know whether counselling could save your marriage…and you’re now feeling proud of yourself because you believe a man found you desirable. It’s disgusting.

You posted this a while ago:
He said he would come to meet me on a particular weekend when I was out of town, though as that weekend was approaching, it was kind of apparent that he hadn’t made the arrangements to do so, so I had doubts he was actually going to meet up with me and was leaning towards breaking it off with him.
Earlier you claimed he’d been pursuing you, and making you feel so very desired…but this sounds incredibly low-effort. When dating legitimately, if a man jumps quickly to messaging with sex talk (and requesting nudes) it tells you he’s interested in sex, not in you. If a man then starts dragging his heels about actually meeting for sex that’s being offered up on a plate, you’ve got to assume he isn’t particularly interested, or has gone off the idea.

Less an “accomplished seductress” who was capable of “getting him to be enamoured or obsessed”, more that you weren’t subtle about lusting after him, he fancied a shag, and it seemed like you’d oblige pretty quickly. Which you would have, if your AP had been more keen and you’d had opportunity before your husband found out.

I don’t think counselling is going to help.

No, you literally said "I just did not care if they were married, and I thought it was only on them if they were cheating."
Now you've been caught cheating, you've conveniently chosen to change your position.

“I don’t believe you, I believe you believe what you say” is such BS. Get out of here. You do not know me better than I know me.

I have said that I think I am different from other people in that I probably would not react to infidelity the same way as most would. I just don’t think I was born with that brainfold.

As I said, I didn’t care that the men were married. Their validation was equal to that of single men, in my mind. Many of the married men were simply in the right place at the right time, or had the characteristics I wanted at the time.

Let me ask you this. If every time a person wanted to cheat on their partner, the person they were interest in cheating with declined to do it with them, would that person be able to cheat?

Again, not blaming my husband for my own actions. That goes back to reasons vs. justifications— “these needs were unmet, which influenced my decision to take immoral actions” vs “these needs were not met so it was morally correct to cheat (with the insinuation that it’s the fault of DH that the needs weren’t met, and therefore the fault of DH that the cheating happened)” Do you see the difference?

Yes, I am saying that AP should have stayed away from me and/or not continued to interact with me when he realized it was more than platonic, because I am married and he knew that. I would also never get involved with a married person again, even if I was single, because that’s morally wrong.

I used the phrase “additional blame” because a lot of people seem to think of blame as some solid, inseparable thing that gets placed on one individual involved in an affair, like it’s “100%” or nothing. It’s more like a thing that can be divided as many times as is necessary without ever diminishing in mass/quantity, with no quantifiable total percentage…

So a person who is committed to monogamy with a partner is in control of themselves and is primarily responsible for any infidelity that they commit. That’s one dollop of blame on the cheater (I like to think of it like a gooey black blob from a little tub that you paste onto someone’s forehead).

Then there’s the AP, who knew the cheater was committed to someone else, who also in control of themselves, who still decided to be actively complicit in the other person’s infidelity, which harms the cheater’s partner. Divide the dollop of blame we put on the cheater, and put some on the AP (though maybe it’s a smaller amount.) But the original dollop on the cheater doesn’t get any smaller because it has unlimited mass…hence, “additional blame.”

None goes on the cheater’s partner, of course regardless of the reasons for the cheater’s actions

does that make any sense? Or am I wasting my time again?

I have not changed my position. It’s been consistent. You are misunderstanding.

You said he couldn’t even be arsed to actually make the arrangements to meet up in the place discussed so it doesn’t sound like this was the case here tbh…

Everybody likes feeling desireable. That’s normal, not “disgusting.” That doesn’t stop just because you enter into a relationship, although normally it changes into “I want to feel desired by my current partner.” (Which is what I wanted and wasn’t getting.)

I felt proud when my husband called me an “accomplished seductress,” and he was speaking generally, not specifically about the affair. I am not proud of the infidelity. You are not keeping the facts and the timeline straight, and I have a feeling you will continue to twist what I’m saying and accuse me of being inconsistent when really it’s just you misunderstanding me repeatedly, possibly intentionally. And then someone else will come along and tell me to stop being argumentative and that I’m just wrong about my own thoughts and narrative and narcissism blah blah blah

Again, AP had pursued me initially. He sought me out and sat with me and talked platonically for hours and hours at a time, and we eventually developed feelings for one another. If he had immediately jumped to sex talk, I would have turned him away. But it was a slow, insidious thing and by the time I realized I was developing feelings for him, I already had them, which made it hard to leave him behind.

It was me who steered the conversation into flirting after we parted ways in person, and eventually to sexting (though we continued to have conversations about non-sexual subjects too.) He was very excitable and engaged, showered me with compliments, and initiated often. That’s what made me feel desired, and what I wanted my husband to make me feel.

It was a really long and expensive journey to endure for a couple nights worth of sex, especially with a married person who might flake, so I understand why he might have been reluctant to come visit. I just wish he would have been honest about it instead of repeating that he was coming, while not giving me any information about his flight or anything.

OP, I think you are going to struggle with the repair.

Loyalty has not entered the conversation yet, and I am really struggling to perceive you as someone for whom loyalty is a thing, much less a principle. How do you view yourself on this domain? Is loyalty something you value?

The other thing that strikes me is that you don’t value your marriage highly, you’re sort of OK with your spouse being sexually active with other people, but what about the conversations around his relationship that would entail “What about your wife?” and he answers “What about her?”. There is a level of denigration that is necessary to make space for an additional top-up relationship. What if he met someone for whom he was prepared to divorce you? That you would be OK with all this feels like someone rather easy-come-easy-go in terms of the relationship.
Again, you don’t really seem to have any principles around how you behave in a relationship.

The other thing is you are emotionally immature. If you copied your words into ChatGPT and asked for an evaluation of emotional immaturity I think you would be surprised at your score. As others have mentioned autism, I’d like to ask, do you have an autism diagnosis and if not has your therapist suggested this?

How can couples therapy be effective when you don’t really know how to be in a couple?

Perhaps your husband is equally emotionally immature and you can muddle through this, but either way your current mindset a “normal” marriage is simply out of the question.

If you truly believe that people should LTB if their partners don't meet their needs/tick their boxes, why haven't you left your dh as he hasn't been ticking your boxes for a long long time? Instead of seeking validation outside of your marriage?

also, why is your husband encouraging you to engage with the AP by typing a 'hey'? What would be the point of that unless your dh wants you to get back in contact with this man? This is very odd to me.

@TreadingTrepidatious I don’t mean this as an insult but do you think perhaps you could be autistic? I think your way of thinking is different to the majority. It’s very logical and you seem to struggle with empathy. But I can tell you do care about your DH. I think people may be seeing you as disingenuous because they can’t believe you would think the way you do — but if you are ND it may explain why people don’t understand your way of thinking.

It’s moreso about whether your partner can, and is willing to, tick your boxes. If they can and they’re willing to, then the solution is to communicate your needs in order to get them met. If they don’t/cant/and or/won’t tick the boxes.. that’s when you should consider moving on, or whether you will choose to remain discontented.