Where do I go from here? Post affair.

[ChasingRainbows8]

I wrote late last year about my situation, dealing with breast cancer, grief and an emotionally unavailable DH. My head was all over the place and I developed feelings for another man, acted on these feelings too, unbelievably really looking back.

Where I am at now is that I have had some very difficult conversations with DH and I don't know what direction to take. I can see he is hurting and he has tried to open up, it's incredibly difficult though as he struggles to really understand his own emotions to be able to talk about them. He does not want to engage in therapy. He did say he loves me (for the first time in years) but I'm unclear as to whether he is just reacting to me opening up about the OM. Why couldn't he try before, when I was diagnosed. When I was screaming out for emotional connection, telling him I was lonely and planning dates for us. The last date I planned, it felt we had nothing left to say to each other. There was a lot of silence.

He withdrew physically over the past year, he said he was doing this to protect me. He cannot articulate what he was protecting me from though and now he wants to be physical again and I don't.

We have been basically co-parenting, doing things with the DC separately. I mostly take them out on a Saturday and he does the same on a Sunday.

I have been working on myself, continuing counseling, seeing friends, getting back to work and exercising. My mood is incredibly low though and all I do is fantasise about having my own little place, on my own. I can't seem to get the thought out of my head.

I really don't know the best way to move forward and to increase my mood. We have slept in separate rooms for 13 years but for the past 3 years I've struggled to sleep in my bed, my mind races and I end up on the sofa. The DC see me there most mornings. I doubt this is good for them mentally either.

I have to be honest I still think about the OM but I certainly don't want a relationship and I don't want to blow my life up for that. I just want to feel peace.

My grandma recently moved to a care home and I have been spending time at her house alone. My anxiety all but disappears there and I feel such calmness. But I love my DH, I really was besotted by him at one point.

OP this is all so muddled and sad.
can you say a bit more about why you don’t want to end the marriage - is it because you look back at the time you were besotted with your husband?
Was he cruel or just not engaging when you were ill? (I live with a terrible husband in these regards so this is not heading towards judgement btw).
What would ending the marriage look like?

I have always known he struggles to communicate his emotions and I kind of accepted that part of him. But since having the DC and then particularly over this past year, I have needed more from him. I have communicated this but it leads to him withdrawing further. Such as I told him I needed to hear that he loved me after my cancer diagnosis and he said that he could not say that to me. He was just shut down completely. There has been some stone walling over the past year when I try to initiate relationship conversations. He wasn't cruel, he just forgot my appointments, after being told lots of times and he didn't do anything for my birthday. I guess I expected to be treated well having just had surgery.

He has spent a lot of time over the last 5/6 years watching YouTube. Lots of views that I disagree with. He calls men who do romantic things that their partner wants 'simps'. It has changed him, I can see that. He stopped going out completely, just stays at home. He just zones out and it's like he doesn't hear things.

On the other hand, he is a very hands on dad. He is great in all the practical ways. They are his world. He is loyal, trustworthy and kind in his own way.

I see that he is trying to change in some ways. He has reduced his YouTube and is more present. I guess I am worried that I am making a selfish decision. That my decision has been blurred by the interaction with the OM. Who really I just lent on because I was in a bad place.

I know if the marriage ended we could co-parent. We would have the DC 50/50 as he cut down his hours to care for our DC and my job is flexible.

You're right it's so muddled because there has been so much happen. I can't begin to process everything while in this house at the moment. I get so anxious at home and my mind races.

I’m also in cancer treatment, it’s a wild time and you sound overwhelmed.
time alone is regulating, can you do more of that? Does it feel dangerous to take time out, like you might not come back? If so that’s information, to discuss with your therapist
I honestly think adult relationships can take a back seat, it’s you, your DC and your support network that matters right now. Your husband will have to be patient or leave.
with the sofa, if you’re comfortable there just own it and explain to kids it’s where you’re most comfy, you don’t need to be feeling bad about it and putting more pressure on yourself.
Well done for what you are doing for yourself. That’s the way through I think, self care and learning about and responding to your needs.

Reading your second post- this sounds really shit, I’m not surprised you’re unhappy with him. You may be much better off single, coparenting and not dealing with his emotional depravation. I wouodnt want to be with someone like that, FWIW

He's not really ever going to get over you cheating on him.

You want him to support you when he really needs someone to support him. You can't give each other what you each need. It's a mess. It would be better to end it.

I know what you mean. How can I now expect him to make positive changes when he is processing what I have done. But then neither of us can move to a place where the relationship is functioning. He doesn't want things to end though and I am finding that challenging. Maybe I should try harder to make it work.

I think the only way forward is bring radically honest with each other about what you both want out of the rest of your lives.
It might be that you fantasise about living alone and that brings you peace, because you just want respite from the mental maelstrom you’re enduring.
Being in your current situation isn’t peaceful, you’re processing what happened to your health, how that may have changed your outlook on life, you’re processing why you turned to somebody else and had an affair, you’re processing the fact that this hurt your husband and very possibly has changed how he now sees you, you’re processing how his withdrawal in your time of great need hurt you, all whilst trying to act normally and maintain your family. It’s a huge, huge amount under an immense strain and a breeding ground for deep resentment to set in on both sides, plus dire straits for your mental health.
If he ended it would you feel relief?
If you ended it would you feel relief?
Do you think the fantasising about living alone is what you really want, or have you just traded your affair partner fantasy (one form of escape) for a living solo with no ties fantasy (another form of escape)?
I say this gently, because of all you’ve been through and all you are going through, your head must be all over the place, but maybe you just need to face the state of your marriage head on now, instead of looking for ways to avoid being in it in its current state and dealing with it?
You might find you want to stay, but you just don’t know how to deal with all the myriad current issues, so you plan escapes but never go completely through with them. You need to ask yourself why that is.
You might find that you want to leave, but you’re as avoidant as he is and don’t want to face it so you look for ways of staying put by using affair fantasies/ escape fantasies to make it bearable.
Or you might find that you both want the marriage and need support working out how to improve things.
Honesty on both sides needed now, I wouldn’t rush into any hasty decisions, there’s too much clouding everything for you to know what you want straightaway.
Maybe if he finds discussing emotional stuff difficult, you make a list of what you want out of the marriage and he does the same, then compare notes. Ask him to write about how the affair made him feel and what he needs from you to feel safe and loved again, and you write about how your illness made you feel and what you needed from him at the time that he didn’t provide.
Ask yourselves why he couldn’t provide that and why you turned to someone else.
No blame, no shame, just honesty. He’s not responsible for your choice to have an affair, that was your responsibility, and you’re not responsible for his lack of support and poor treatment of you during your illness, that was his responsibility.
Find out what you both feel and want, find out what you need from each other to make this happen, either together or apart, and things might start to look clearer.
Your brain is darting from one problem to another with no way of solving anything, without having a no holds barred discussion. I think that’s why you keep looking for bolt holes. Deal with one issue at a time in your head.
Make a ‘what do I want my life to look like like?’ private wish list first.
You’ve been through a hell of a lot, cut yourself some slack, take a deep breath and start tackling it just one bit at a time.
He obviously needs to be fully on board with all this, making an effort to dig deep and face facts, otherwise the answer is actually way more straightforward. Just saying he wants to stay in the marriage isn’t enough to fix it, no matter how avoidant he is and no matter how fervently he hopes that that is enough. It isn’t.

It’s not about you trying harder to make things work, it’s about both of you getting honest about what you really want and both working out how to make that work.
Yes, you had an affair but if he wants to stay in the marriage then he doesn’t think it’s an insurmountable issue. It’s a bloody big deal, yes, I’m not minimising it, but whilst you need to do the spade work on helping him heal from that, he also needs to roll his sleeves up and ask himself what he needs to do to improve the marriage he wants to stay in and ask himself where he was when you needed him to help you heal from your physical illness and the huge mental toll that cancer takes.
One person trying harder never works, he should want that too, the marriage is a fifty fifty shared responsibility. Your affair doesn’t change that shared responsibility. You have to do the work to help him heal from the affair, but he doesn’t get to use it as an excuse to make you shoulder all the responsibility for the marriage too.

Most people don't want to end their relationship when they find out that they have been cheated on. It's probably the last thing they want. They try to understand why it happened, they try to make sense of the deception and bury the hurt. But no matter how much they want to keep the relationship going, it can't. The pain will always be there. The damage is done.

This is why he says he doesn't want things to end. He didn't want you to cheat on him either but that ship has sailed now. You can't give him what he needs because you no longer have it to give. He can't give you what you need either.

I think it would feel a relief if things ended right now, I just wonder if I would feel the same in 6 months. We both agreed that mentally I am burnt out and without me pursuing changes, I know nothing will change on either side. A fresh start sounds lovely for now though.

We did the exercise of writing out feelings and what we need from a relationship. He made 5 brief points about me, but nothing really about how he feels.

I know I haven't probably been annoying to him for the past year, the more my emotional needs weren't met, the more I asked him questions. Trying to squeeze information out of him. Such as appreciation of compliments. The more my pursuing failed, the more anxious I became.

One thing to consider is, if he changed overnight now to give you what you needed, would he stick at it (or just do it for a few months until you seemed to have calmed down) and would it be enough for you? Because regardless of the 'why' he behaved in that way, you communicated endlessly to him about how unhappy you were and he did nothing, and thats really hard to genuinely forgive and move on from. Would him changing now be too late, is the question.

I know he could not sustain giving words of affirmation or appreciation. He finds it hard to give compliments, say sorry and to see why other people need this because it's not something he needs. He struggles to see perspectives outside of his own. I think he needs to have some therapy around his childhood, he doesn't think this would help him though. In fact, he's not really happy about me accessing therapy as he said it's made me worse.

I worry that we would just go on as we are. Living separate lives.

For me, this would be my answer. I could not live another 50 years miserable. And I would never forgive myself for sacrificing my life like that. You only get one.
Plus, your kids need to see happiness, healthy relationships. The short term pains of separating do not compare to the lifelong damage that can be done when your children end up echoing the unhappy relationships around them. We have to teach children to read, brush their teeth, not eat too much chocolate... teaching them how to love and be loved is maybe the most important thing parents do.

@ChasingRainbows8 that’s really sad, I’m so sorry.
He sounds like he’s got his head in a bucket of sand about it all.
Have you told him how you feel about the future, that you’re on the point of giving up on the marriage and why you feel this way? That you are on the point of ending the marriage? If you’ve been trying hard and being conciliatory on the surface and hiding how you really feel, maybe he doesn’t know how close to losing you he really is? He might think that because you are still there it means that you aren’t remotely anywhere near actually thinking of ending it.
Perhaps you need to separate for a while to give you both some space and perspective and add reality to the things that are going round in your head? It might give you the breathing space you need to see what you really want and show him that he can’t carry on as he is, that he really needs to listen to you and step up.
Either way I really feel for you both as it can’t go on like this, it sounds like torture with this going round in your head. You need some peace to be able to think clearly.

He definitely knows where I am at in terms of the relationship. He obviously thinks it's because of the OM, I can't blame him for thinking that way.

I suggest temporary separation for us both to figure out if this is what we want. His black and white thinking means that if I leave then there's no going back.

I have spoken to my mum about purchasing my grandma's house too. He is aware of this too.

Interesting that he avoids therapy and has decided that you having therapy has ‘made you worse.’
It sounds like what’s worse for him is that therapy means talking about it more and exploring your needs. In order to do that you have to engage with him about it all and that’s what he wants to avoid.
Some people on the autistic spectrum
find it hard to understand people’s needs differing from their own and his lack of understanding in this area and desire to give you what you need emotionally smacks of that.
Of course you feel anxious when your pursuit of him is met with a brick wall, where else are you meant to turn, he’s your husband.
If you can’t see him changing in the future (and this would be nothing short of a miracle from what you are describing,) then maybe your choice is simpler: a future with anxiety and rebuffal in an emotional desert, or a fresh start with the peace you need to heal your body and mind?
Of course it’s not an easy choice to end a marriage, it’s a huge and very sad decision, but the pros really have to hugely outweigh the cons in order to stay and find happiness within it.

OM obviously muddies the waters, I understand that and I think if it was me I’d would find it hard to accept a reason for separation which wasn’t related to that if I was him.
Perhaps with his poor emotional and introspective skills he feels that an ‘if you leave you’re never coming back’ ultimatum is his only was of not losing you and ensuring you don’t leave.
After the affair, hearing how you feel and that you’re looking into buying another property might have made him give up internally and be unable to see how change and effort on his part will have any effect on you since you’ve gone that far. He might be thinking ‘what’s the point? If you want out just do it.’ and not want to be the one to end it. It’s like brinkmanship almost, in that he does nothing about the mess you’re both in to see if you’ll actually carry any of it out and you tell him how far you’ve gone towards leaving to see if he’ll hear you and change.
I think separation is the only way forward and if he wants the marriage he’s either got to do his part to save it or let you go. The only way to get clarity is to be apart, it’s up to him if he wants to cut his nose off to spite his face and say you can’t ever come back.

Having read your original post and the following ones after that, @ChasingRainbows8 , they made me think that you are both are not letting go of the setup, even though you are both unhappy in it. I am sorry for all the struggles you had to endure, that wouldn't be easy for anyone to deal with... And then there's the cheating, I am not trying to judge you here, but that is something that can never be undone, no matter how much work you put in. Some people in some cases seem to be able to get past it (somehow, it is beyond me how, I wouldn't stay, just simply couldn't), but it is very clear that your husband is not in that group, either. You are very right about it not creating a good environment for the children, either. Staying together for their benefit hardly ever works, they are not stupid, they will pick up on unhappiness, they would grow up with unhappiness between the spouses being normalised, which is not a life lesson any of us would want to teach kids, I think. So that is also worth considering.

For your peace of mind, and your husband's, not to mention a different setup for the children, if I were you, I would exit the marriage. I am not even talking about the other man, I am not saying to exit marriage and with one swoop enter that one. I think what you need is to take some time to be with yourself a bit...

The only good thing about him is his parenting, and he can continue that if/when you divorce.

He won't change, you can choose whether you want decades more of this, or happiness.

If you buy your grandmothers house while married, it will be a marital asset.

Be careful about the nan’s house purchase during the marriage - he will have a claim on that if/when you divorce if you did it before you apply

You're happier away from him, that says it all really. You can co-parent and be happy. You deserve it after all you've been through. You're flogging a dead horse here, set yourself free.

This sounds so hard OP. I am going to ficus in the sleep because I truly believe that when we get enough sleep we are more grounded and can think clearly. It’s good that you are exercising. Can you do more physical activity, even just walking, to wear you out? Do you have a good mattress. Have you tried things like magnesium and pillow sprays? This works is good. Also there are sleep casts on headspace and Spotify. Even if they don’t help you fall asleep, they will stop the racing thoughts. Wishing you all the best.