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

So essentially you gave the game away yourself but at the time you were so wrapped up and on a high with the ap you didn't care if the marriage really were to end.

You continued to text as you said before you then initiated the texting into more flirtatious intimate talk and sexting. You were enamoured by this man and cared little about your h's pain during this period.
By the sounds of it the ap cooled towards you, didn't want to meet up and left you high and dry, I should imagine you were displaying withdrawl symptoms and that must have been crushing for your h.

Your h knows this mans name, is there a possibility that your h could communicate with him? Is there part of you that wants to create drama and have your h fight for you for revenge of being duped.

Throughout this thread there has been an overwhelming ammount of anger and distain in many of your posts directed at some of the posters, anger is not something a cheater often displays outwardly to strangers, they tend to act remorseful.
Could your anger be that of rejection by the ap, this man obviously made your boundaries disappear very quickly, maybe that is where your anger lies and why you have such little concern for your h, almost as if you blame him for your indescretion, if he had been everthing you need then maybe you would not have been hoodwinked by a player.

No, I definitely still cared about my marriage. I wanted the things AP was giving to come from my husband and I tried to ask for them, but there was just a lot of miscommunication… I thought it was dead and I cried and cried about it. I had nightmares from the guilt and trouble sleeping and everything. I wanted to quit the affair and for him never to find out and to not get hurt by it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it because I felt so alone and hopeless.

I don’t think AP “cooled towards” me; I think he was just lying about coming to visit that weekend (otherwise why would he text me 3 days after I broke it off, and again 3 weeks later?). It is a lingering possibility in my mind that he was also partnered and cheating himself, and that’s why his response times were so weird. These suspicions were gonna be the nail in the coffin, I’m pretty sure. But it is probable I had “withdrawal symptoms” on the days he didn’t text me and DH picked up on it.

I don’t want DH to interact with AP at all. He might kill him. I don’t worry about that sort of thing, but I definitely don’t fantasize about it either.

My anger at PPs is because they are deliberately misinterpreting what I’ve said and twisting things. It has to be trolling; I can’t comprehend anyone being that dense. Also, I don’t owe anybody here remorse.

Well, a couple of babies have come out of my vagina and I breastfed them, so if I was actually secretly a man I would be VERY surprised and confused.

By disclosing this friendship with your h and telling him you wanted a connection like you had with the ap your h knew you were willing to discard him.

He must have been devastated and instead of you picking up on his pain you decided he just wanted to withdraw further, he was protecting himself.

And now this ap no longer seems like a viable option you are wanting your h to forgive and reconnect, in fact you dont even care if he forgives because you have apported him blame.

You should go to solo councelling, I don't think either of you are ready yet for couples councelling, your h should also attend solo therapy.

Do you still miss the ap, are you angry with him ?

Personally I think you and h need time appart, for him to decide whether he can still remain in the marriage and for you to stop with the bravado and be truly sorry.

There will be consequenses, there always are.

Sure OP, anyone can say anything on the internet.

"You're an accomplished seductress" and "Well, there’s 'turning them on' and then there’s getting them to be enamoured or obsessed with you. It’s such a thrill to do that".

This is how men fantasise how women think about sex and relationships.

The sexism doesn’t end, does it?

Hey bud. Even the dudes on here have clocked that you're a bloke.

Women with autism often get told they sound like men, especially any time they mention sex. This happens to me just about every other time I use this website. It’s either “OP is a man pretending to be a woman” or “OP is AI.” Can’t you just accept that people are different?

Or maybe this is more trolling, in which case… don’t you have anything constructive to do with your time?

My thoughts exactly, hence the animosity based on your communication style not conforming to others’ expectations.

I’m not so sure. I’m diagnosed AuDHD, and it’s not the communication style that rubbed me up the wrong way - it’s the entitlement in OPs attitude, and her insistence that her husband and affair partner both share some responsibility for her decision to cheat.

Added to which, if you know you struggle to see things through the eyes of others, you know it’s worth listening to people who offer an alternative viewpoint. OP hasn’t done that, she’s just insisted that her views are correct and everybody else is wrong.

Rigid thinking being a typical ASD trait? You know the saying ‘if you’ve met one Autistic person - it means you’ve met one Autistic person’. After a while it’s easy enough to identify, but it manifests in very different ways.

Yes likewise (I've never been dx but I'm definitely high on the autism spectrum)- for me the give-aways are the almost comic level of entitlement, the self-obsession, the hints of the OP's lifestyle (how many women have children of an age that they need constant hands-on care, and also plenty of time to have an affair?), as well as the above mentioned male-fantasy dialogue.

I do believe OP's wife has said something resembling "You're an accomplished seductress" but the actual words were probably something like "You just can't seem to keep it in your pants".

It all smacks of a reverse, and not a very sophisticated one.

I do believe OP's wife has said something resembling "You're an accomplished seductress" but the actual words were probably something like "You just can't seem to keep it in your pants".

That’s brilliant.

I can’t be bothered to trawl through all the latest gobshite, but has the apparently autistic OP accepted it was her that cheated? Even though it has been patently obvious throughout?

Yes, although it seems there were a number of mitigating factors so she is both in the wrong and also “but reasons”!! Anyone who offers advice around being more empathetic to her husband and less self oriented is told they’re deliberately misunderstanding her and, in my case, is a psycho whose house will probably burn down.

So yeah, I think we’ve all given up.

I don't know if the story's true, if OP is who s/he says s/he is, whatever. Possibly. All I do know is that it isn't a request for advice on rebuilding a marriage after infidelity, it's a masturbatory exercise to talk endlessly about what OP wants and how OP has discovered sex and is incredibly sexually powerful (people having affairs do often start thinking they're James Bond or Mata Hari; they're high on constant dopamine hits and don't see what everyone else sees). We perhaps shouldn't encourage it.

So your husband confronted you knowing something was very wrong, instead of using that as a catalyst to get to the bottom of your marital issues, and why this may have happened, you completely denied it, aside from to say you've been 'talking to a friend'. DH knowing you are full of shit but without proof and not wanting to call you a liar, then withdrew into himself and you thought.. 'well he's obviously not bothered, I'll keep disrespecting him and our marriage by carrying on this affair right under his nose.'

Said no loving spouse ever.

You've done this purely for the thrill it has given you, a little ego boost, which doesn't sound like it was ever going to be realised to be fair, you even kept his sexual messages so you could go back and re-read them, which is what led your husband to the evidence, it's pretty horrifying that you would do all that, deny it when asked, carry it on, LIE and BLAME your husband for why you did it, and then go snooping into his phone and destroying the evidence so he couldn't leave you.

I think you need to get off mumsnet and have a good long look at yourself before you put your husband through more 'therapy'.. I hope he is enjoying his holiday without you, it sounds like he needs the break.

Bloody hell. Her poor husband. This all sounds rigid and emotionally destroying to navigate. He must be deeply frustrated.

I wonder if my house will burn down too?

Bloody hell. Her poor husband. This all sounds rigid and emotionally destroying to navigate. He must be deeply frustrated.

I wonder if my house will burn down too?

Jesus Christ. 🤯

I was in a relationship with someone who cheated on me with the mother of his child. I was young and naive (26 years old at the time, now 42) and he convinced me he hadn’t done this despite giving me STIs I stayed for a few months after discovering his infidelity but the trust was broken and I found myself constantly checking through his phone and wondering if he was still sleeping with his ex that I had to end it.

Most definitely! 😉

I have read the full thread. In my.opinion the OP is a woman.

I don't think we should believe the OP 100% that s/he's a woman. I mean they might be, but we know s/he's not an honest person from the affair and we know s/he initially tried to hide whether they were the cheat or the victim of the affair, even though it was obvious to many of us which they were. Not sure they are a reliable narrator! They come across as a man tbh.