How to cope after an affair and the mental toll

[Sellingsunsets]

I'll try to keep this with minimal details so as not to be identified but it might be a long one.

Last year I started an emotional affair with a someone, he is known to bth me and my partner but not a deep level. It quicky turned physical. At the time I was feeling neglected physically and emotionally from my partner and I was struggling mentally with feeling isolated and also just not liking myself very much since the birth of my son 3 years ago. This person has been confiding in me about his relationship troubles for ages and will literally tell anyone who will listen that they aren't a couple and they are only cohabiting. He paid me loads of compliments and just made me feel special. As it progressed he told me he loved me and that we would be together etc and I just needed to be patient, at one point I beli d he was the answer to all my problems and he could be the one to make me feel appreciated and special and attractive again. I thought we genuinely shared a bond and we spoke every single day for a year, saw each other when we could. I felt horrible guilty the whole time but it was like I was high on this feeling of not being disgusting, not being unheard and just being wanted. I don't think deep down I ever wanted to leave my partner, as bad as it sounds I was enjoying the attention. I tried so many times to call the affair off but he kept begging me and promising me all these things. His partner had already became suspicious and started questioning him and at his point I said it needed to stop but again h begged and pleased, told me she was mean to him,treated his kids badly, all sorts of things that I genuinely believed.

Fast forward to last week and I just broke down to my partner and told him everything. He was totally shocked and very upset and honestly I can't blame him. We've since had some long talks and decided that we are going to try and make this work and he is willing to forgive me, I know I don't deserve it and I'm not even sure how I feel about it. My partner told his partner and the affair partner has denied it all and said iv made it all up. I spoke to his partner and was honest and told her everything, things I couldn't possible know unless he told me etc she said she believes me. The real kicker is she told me they been trying to have a baby since last Christmas, everything he told me is all lies and was only to get me to feel sorry for him. She said this is the third time he has cheated on her and even told me some other things that I can't quite believe. He's still denying it all even with the proof. I know what I've done is wrong and I deeply regret it, I don't even know why I let it all continue for so long. I'm feeling betrayed, manipulated and completely foolish that I was so desperate to feel something and I let this happen and I've hurt my poor partner in an unimaginable way.

We have to see if eachother, it's totally unavoidable, I'm finding myself feeling so depressed and down and I feel this sense of grief for the affair relationship, even though I know it was wrong and I now know what kind of person this person is. I feel like everything he ever said was a lie and I can see that I was just used to feel some kind of hole in his life. I know I sound like a hypocrite. I have no where to unload all this and I just can't cope. I know I'm going to get flamed for this but I just don't know what to do. My mind is overcome with all these thoughts all the time and I can't concentrate on anything but.

I’m not going to flame you OP, you already know this is all a consequence of your own actions and it’s clear you’re really struggling right now.

I really think some therapy, really deep work, will help you to unpick all of this and help you understand your part in the affair and what’s missing from your life that made you vulnerable to it.

It is ok, and quite normal, to grieve the end of the affair. It wasn’t reality, it was an escape, and it was built up as some kind of perfect romance, but that wasn’t real and it will take you some time to come to terms with that.

I do think you need to be honest about whether you want to stay and work on your relationship with your partner, and whether you’re still there because it’s familiar and safe? There’s nothing wrong with being single if you know your heart isn’t in it.

I do love my partner very much and I think we were just in a rut and not appreciating each other and we didn't now how each other was feeling despite repeated conversions. I do want to make it work but I feel like I'm too hung up on trying to unpick the ins and outs of this affair.

If you want to fix your relationship with your DP then you immediately need to snap out of any thoughts at all of your AP. He's a philandering arsehole who complimented you and you were selfish enough to take the ego kibbles. Selfishness was how you got here, and now it's time to reverse that.

1. Never have any contact again of any kind with your AP. Zero. Never. Block on everything. It is never unavoidable. Take steps to do whatever is needed to never have contact again. If he tries to contact you, tell your DP immediately.

1. Tell your DP anything he wants to know. Don't lie, don't minimise, don't drip feed.

1. Find a counsellor for yourself and start working through the issues in yourself that led you here.

1. Support your DP however he needs. Listen. Answer. Take the sadness with reassurance. Take the anger without defensiveness. Do not engage in any whataboutery or trying to blame him.

1. Take time to really think about what you've done, and how you would feel in DPs shoes. Instead of worrying about your feelings because your AP doesn't think as much of you as you thought, try and imagine how your DP feels to have his world ripped apart.

I am sorry if this sounds harsh, but if you don't quickly understand, you will lose your DP. Agreeing to give you a second chance is a gift not one cheaters deserve.

Don't waste it.

Have a look at surviving infidelity. I believe there is a thread for the wayward spouse. It might help you to come to terms with it seeing others in a similar situation.

“but it was like I was high on this feeling of not being disgusting, not being unheard - isolated”

This is so sad and I wonder if your partner is being forgiving because he can now see how you were feeling. Perhaps he was shocked because it is so out of character for you.

It comes across that you were not looking for the thrill of an affair - you needed someone to talk to when you were at your lowest. This person may have been the one but for the fact you have now discovered he has a habit of cheating. He took advantage of you and you are struggling to deal with that.

It will take a long time to get over him when he was such a big intensive part of your life. I wonder if you are neighbours as you all seem to be able to talk to each other which is unusual in an affair situation. This would make it much harder having to see each other and be constantly reminded of it - is there any chance of a move to start afresh?

I will probably be slated for my reply but I have been on both sides of affairs (with the same 40 year partner) so I do know how it feels. I was told the affair partner’s marriage was over with lots of examples which made me believe it so I can see why you would too. I consoled myself that I was not the reason their marriage was over. It was true in my case - he moved out and they did divorce.

A relationship can survive an affair if both parties take responsibility and want to fight for it (it worked out for me but it took a very long time - and over 20 years on, we are both so glad we didn’t give up) so you have to be prepared for that - and if you are genuinely a good person you have to try to forgive yourself and perhaps get some therapy which really helped me - although I was someone who never thought they would need a therapist (naive) and I had to try a few to find someone I felt comfortable with.

Aw, you poor pet. Not.

Are you always so gullible?

If I were your partner I'd throw you in the bin.

You're a dangerous, deceitful woman.

If you were a man posting, you'd have a very different response and if you were a woman who was posting about their cheating husband you'd be advised to leave the bastard.

Therapy. That’s it. If you both want to work through this and you want to feel better about yourself as a person you need joint and solo therapy.

You say it’s unavoidable to never see him again. Why? I cannot see any reason to change this. Kids at school together - move schools. Live next door - move house. Work together - change jobs. Yes all suck but that’s part and parcel of cheating.

The book ‘not just friends’ by Glass is a must read.
How to help your spouse heal from your affair - is another book.

Love yourself like your life depends on it by Ravikant is a good read.

Brene Brown ted talk on YouTube on Shame.

Gottmans books - all of them.

Mark Manson - podcast number one on values from his new podcast series - sorry can’t remember what it’s called.

Don’t truckle truth.
NEVER blame your spouse.
Work out your why’s.
See if you can get EMDR therapy for your spouse if he needs it.

Feeling unloved - he feels unloved now. He also misses reliability and honesty. My postman’s always on time (reliable) and never steals my post (honest). Shagging the postman won’t fix your husbands need for honesty and reliability. Just like shagging this bloke hasn’t fixed your relationship. It’s not an excuse - it’s daft.

As for you are upset your affair partner lied. Cheaters are liars - anyone messing with a married man knows 100% he is a liar - what made you think he’d be honest with you? You need to work on this - why did you believe a liar?

That said I think you have made a few comments which suggest you could dig deep and get to the bottom of why you chose to betray your supposed values.

Whilst you may think you want to understand the actions of your AP, really you are just reeling from knowing it was all bullshit. You had pinned your worth on him seeing something in you that you didn’t see in yourself. Now you are trying to unpick it to try and find a scenario where you were really wanted and you didn’t hurt other people for some empty validation.

I’m not saying this to hurt you. Understanding what motivates your focus can help with moving on. You can’t change the past but the future is still undetermined. In order to make the right choices now you have to understand what led you to make the choices you did.

You need individual therapy to unpick your behaviour and not blame your spouse. He is not responsible for your actions. He is partly responsible for the state of your relationship but you also had other options — couples counselling, divorce etc. You also can’t completely blame him for your insecurities. Nobody else’s actions can make you worthy to yourself. Right now you have to accept some hard truths and do the best to take accountability.

Don’t drag your spouse through working out why you cheated. Do the work and come back to him with insight and accountability. Be honest with yourself. Don’t stay with him if you are no longer fully invested in your relationship.

If you are willing to do anything to make it work then plan how to move forward based on what he needs to feel secure. If that means very inconvenient, awkward or expensive changes then that is the consequence of your actions.

Therapy, therapy, therapy plus book list from @FairyMaclary and get studying, because this is going to take work and you need to be willing to roll your sleeves up.

Yes you feel shit. So do at least two other people, plus a huge dollop of shock and lack of control and agency because this was not their choice. You chose this. You need to work out why, and fix that. If your partner sees you doing this there is a chance they will forgive you but they will never forget.

Having an affair is literally doing a deal with the devil. It is not over when you say it's over unfortunately.

“OchreRaven · Today 11:07

Whilst you may think you want to understand the actions of your AP, really you are just reeling from knowing it was all bullshit. You had pinned your worth on him seeing something in you that you didn’t see in yourself. Now you are trying to unpick it to try and find a scenario where you were really wanted and you didn’t hurt other people for some empty validation.

I’m not saying this to hurt you. Understanding what motivates your focus can help with moving on. You can’t change the past but the future is still undetermined. In order to make the right choices now you have to understand what led you to make the choices you did.

You need individual therapy to unpick your behaviour and not blame your spouse. He is not responsible for your actions. He is partly responsible for the state of your relationship but you also had other options — couples counselling, divorce etc. You also can’t completely blame him for your insecurities. Nobody else’s actions can make you worthy to yourself. Right now you have to accept some hard truths and do the best to take accountability.

Don’t drag your spouse through working out why you cheated. Do the work and come back to him with insight and accountability. Be honest with yourself. Don’t stay with him if you are no longer fully invested in your relationship.
If you are willing to do anything to make it work then plan how to move forward based on what he needs to feel secure. If that means very inconvenient, awkward or expensive changes then that is the consequence of your actions.”

This with bells on. MN is generally brilliant but there are sometimes blind spots. Some posters will excuse women for bad behaviour which would not be tolerated from men. As a PP said, if you were a man saying you’d had an affair because you felt neglected in the early years of parenthood, you wouldn’t be getting sympathy from anyone.

But we’ve all done some shitty things in our time; God knows, I have in any case. You can’t put back time but you can behave decently going forward and FWIW I think you were right to tell your DH about the affair. That at least showed integrity.

Behaving decently going forward also means taking full responsibility for the affair - not blaming your DH for it - and doing whatever your DH needs to show you can be trusted (which probably means curtailing your own freedoms for a while).

In particular, if you want your DH to feel able to trust you again, there can be no further contact with the OM. If you care enough about your DH, you will make that happen. You should expect to be extremely open and transparent with your DH going forward for a long time. Your DH’s feelings about whether or not he can trust you and stay with you may fluctuate. Only time will tell whether your relationship can recover from your affair (some do, some don’t) and it could be years before the position is clear. You will have to live with that uncertainty in the meantime as a consequence of your actions.

Some really amazing advice and thoughts on these replies. Thank you so much. Everything people have said is absolutely true and right and I take on board everything you have all said and deep down I know it's all right and fair and true. Thank you

Good luck, @Sellingsunsets!

FWIW, over the 25+ years DH and I have been together, I have on a couple of occasions developed strong feelings for other men. I didn’t act on them and they didn’t stop me loving my DH (who I loved as much as ever) but I do believe it’s possible to love more than one person at once.

The point here is whether your love for your DH is deep and strong enough and you’re able to take the steps you need to, to make him feel secure again.

Be honest op, what was the motivation for telling your partner about this? What did you want to happen?

Because some people confess to cheating not to clear their conscience but to force the other person to end the relationship. They don’t want forgiveness, they want it to end.

Surviving Infidelity – Wayward Spouse section, and invest in therapy.

There's an awful lot about you in this post OP. Best wishes to your child and partner.

I think it was more I just felt like exploding, I had so much going on in my head and it was like a weight had been lifted.

You don't sound like an hypocrite. You have been one. Get on with it and don't grieve anything about the other man. You have now the opportunity of carry on with your husband because he is willing to do it, be glad if that is what you want. If not just end it. Work with that. Work on it, work on you, on your relationship and make it work, or come to the conclusion that you need to be on your own, whatever, but stop the excuses, they will only harm you in different ways.
Make yourself accountable of what you have done and start clean, lesson learnt and move on. If you carry on with the excuses you will only make your worse.

All about her and very little about her dh.
If it had been the other way round, LTB would have been the vast majority of the comments.
He’s probably in some sort of shock - these things can take a long time to sink in, especially the thought of the intimate details and how he compared to your lover.

I am right now in the OPs DHs’ position, having found out a month ago about an ongoing a year long affair.
Everything that has been said re accountability, honesty, openness etc feels to me to be the right step.
But I also have to agree on the shock element. My world has been turned upside down and the person who I thought as my safe harbour was unfaithful. Intrusive thoughts and dreams wake me up at night. I’m anxious all the time now, and try to avoid, but can’t help, compare myself to him.
It sucks, but I still care for her deeply. Taking true accountability and showing you want to work at it would be the first step from my humble opinion.
I’m only saying this to maybe give OP an insight into what her DH might be going through.

You were looking for emotional validation and found it, then you found out it was all a lie.

You won't leave your job, so you'll still be in contact with your AP. I think that's really unfair to your partner and I wouldn't accept that.

I think until you make big changes you are at risk for the same behaviour. You need individual therapy and to make the big changes like change jobs and separate until you feel secure enough in yourself to not fall for the ego boost and validation you got from your affair.