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 colour of the sky is objective; you can measure the wavelength of visible light and determine that it falls in the spectrum humans have decided to call ‘blue.’ It’s different from, say, subjectively feeling that the sky is a lovely shade of blue. You can’t tell someone who feels that way that they don’t feel that way for xyz reasons. You can tell them how you feel about the shade, whether you agree or disagree. But neither of you are the authority on whether the shade of blue is lovely or not.

You can’t tell someone whether they love another person or not, because you’re not the authority on what ‘love’ is or how people experience it. There is no widely agreed upon definition or set of behaviors that demonstrate love. For example, some people still feel perfectly loved within open relationships; others would feel jealousy, betrayal, hurt, etc. and definitely not loved if their partner slept with someone else. Some people feel that they can love a person within days of meeting them; others don’t think it can really be love until they spend months or even years together. Think about how romantic gestures vary from culture to culture… I could go on, but I think you probably get my point.

I’m not justifying anything. I’m speaking in general about the subject at hand.

“I’m not justifying anything but the way we feel and define love is just different insert spouse’s name here.
Just because I fucked him / her, lied to you and betrayed you, does not mean I don’t love you. I’m sorry you don’t feel loved but my subjective experience of love is just different to yours”

God I sincerely feel sorry for your partner and I hope they wise up and leave.

Again, I’m not going to confirm or deny assumptions. It’s beside the point.

The cheating partner felt that the sexual relationship had become a bit passionless, and craved a deeper connection to the betrayed partner through conversation. The betrayed partner had no idea that the cheater felt this way, thought their sex to be good and satisfying, and felt connected to the cheater whenever they spent time together, even in silence. The cheater made an attempt to convey their dissatisfactions to the betrayed, but failed, and recalled the betrayed responding negatively in the past when couple’s therapy was suggested. The cheater made a friend who met their needs and consequently developed feelings for them, and thus began the affair. The affair was discovered before any extramarital sex was had, but the intention and plans to have extramarital sex were there, which the betrayed feels is equally hurtful.

We have been talking to one another for hours each day. Basically as long as we can stay awake after the children go to bed. I think it’s okay if I want to engage in discussions with other people in my free time as well.

It is quite often that the ways spouses demonstrate love and feel loved are different from one another’s. Check out the discourse surrounding the five love languages, and how often spouses have to communicate through their differences to make the relationship work. For example, one partner may constantly buy the other gifts but rarely verbally express his love for her, and she may not feel loved even if he does love her. Or, one partner may feel unloved if the other declines an invitation to spend quality time with him, even if she still loves him very much and expresses it other ways.

That is certainly not to say that cheating is a demonstration of love, or that it is loving behavior. But what I am saying is that loving someone and cheating are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes people do things that are hurtful to those they love. Take, for example, if you get into a row with your mother, and you say something hurtful in anger during. You still love her, even if you’re not behaving lovingly in that moment… Obviously cheating is much worse, but the same principle applies.

"Sex was had" - priceless 😂

"Sex was had" 😆 excuses, excuses. Is this an AI bot post?
Love between a mother and child is usually 95% unconditional. This is not the case for partners.
I couldn't forgive DH for having an affair due to his selfish ego not being massaged whilst we're busy parenting. Unforgivable.

You’re getting plenty of shit on this forum. Some of it I guess because not only are you holding back on saying who did what, but also because you’re being completely clinical and logical about it. Grief, guilt, or hopelessness would go down so much better!
But you asked about getting through this, not for judgment: So I’d say that if you’re both talking - properly - you’re half way there. Sounds like your expectations of how your relationship should work aren’t too well aligned though, and I’d worry that either one of you feeling they have to act differently, will be an ongoing source of tension. Keep talking 😁

Not really, something done or said in the heat of the moment in anger is not the same as multiple premeditated acts with full awareness of the damage it will cause. So the same principle does not apply. Is this thread some weird practice run of how you intend to gaslight your spouse in marriage counselling? Sure feels like it.

Before sex was had, and again, I’m using the passive voice as a means of avoiding disclosure of who cheated.

At home, everything is very emotional and chaotic for the both of us. It feels nice to take a break from that and think of things from a logical perspective, and to talk of relationships that aren’t specifically the train wreck that is mine right now.

Thanks.

Nobody is gaslighting anyone in couple’s therapy.

It’s funny to me that this thread is full of people insisting they know how all cheaters feel about their spouses better than they do themselves, yet I’m the one being accused of gaslighting. 🪞

But what kind of love “for” someone includes lying to them, cheating on them, and everything else that goes along with infidelity? Isn’t it shallow, selfish, unreliable, insincere, careless and cruel? How does that fit any definition of love? You seem to be emphasizing the unfaithful partner’s selfish state of mind. But that isn’t dispositive. Its a rather odd and subjective belief that real love is what is felt or meant by a cheater. They may enjoy their spouse, like their spouse, want to keep their spouse—but that all could just be selfish habit masquerading as love because that is a sentiment that gets a lot of play as worthy. But in reality the love you feel for someone you have lied to is filled with contempt (because they were fooled by you) and guilt (because you transgressed against them) and selfish refusal to accept consequences or a bad name for the bad act.

Well that was ten minutes I will never get back.

I feel sorry for your wife. Tell her if she comes in here we’ll give her all the support she needs.

Your spouse will never trust or never see you in the same way again.
Your integrity is gone.
It really doesnt matter how many points you come up with, arguing that it was a mishap, error etc. It doesnt matter how much talking you do.
Because everytime your spouse talks to you, eats with you, sleeps next to you, they will remember how you were busy humping someone else.
Your spouse might forgive but they wont forget. They will always be looking over their shoulder

This is what I was thinking too sounds like a man. On p2 though they use a female emoji unless that’s a red herring!

IMO it’s very much sounds like you are the cheat OP and think u can talk yourself out of anything.

Your spouse will know the person you can choose to be. That it’s in you, it’s part of you, and that at any point it can resurface. They’ll never trust you again.

My DH is just someone that looks like him. But he’s no longer the person I used to know. He’s a stranger with his head on.

One of the craziest threads I've read, you sound like a robot.

I know! Your strict use of the passive voice and avoidance of pronouns has resulted in this bizarrely contorted syntax, which is 100% working against you here. Language matters! When people see you mangling your sentences like that, they're more likely to believe you can twist the truth and manipulate others' feelings.

But do keep it up, it's quite funny 😃

After five pages of posts we still don't know if the OP is male, female, the cheater or the betrayed party. This, plus the robotic 'careful' wording, deadpan method of delivery and insistence on being right t conjures up a tale of lies and deception in itself.

I think it’s quite clear the poster is the cheater. Already practising how they’re going to gaslight and contort everything when dealing with their poor spouse in marriage counselling…

My ex boss, an IT start up entrepreneur whizz kid cliche, used to talk like OP.
He was an emotional desert and skilled manipulator who got a kick from making people feel small and unsettled. If he was bored he'd weave stories, reel people in then completely change tack.

He cheated on his wife too.

I think its clear that the object of this post was to gather useful information that could be used to argue his point with the spouse he cheated on. Its a bit like someone typing “how to get away with murder” into google. He probably typed “woman’s opinion about infidelity “ into the browser.

Nonsense- real love is putting another person’s wellbeing above your own. And some people just aren’t capable of doing that. And it’s not compatible with cheating. Stop trying to get yourself off the hook.