For those coping with infidelity (or those thinking of doing it)

[AHundredPercentPolyester]

Hi

This isn't a question, but it's something I wanted to share, as many years ago I came to this forum to get help with my then-boyfriend's infidelity and I wanted to share it here for anyone riding that nightmare train.

I won't re-hash the circumstance, but it was a terrible experience I would not wish on my worst enemy, made worse by all the classics: trickle truth, multiple d-days, and even - sadly - the affair re-igniting when we were trying to recover.

It was God awful.

We weren't one of those couples where the cheater is incredibly self-aware and goes to therapy and starts talking like a guest on Oprah. It was a shit show for a couple of years. He was completely unable to cope with the shame and it took years for him to be able to understand the real reasons or really understand the pain he caused.

We went through three years of complete hell. The rage in me was bottomless, the sadness seemed unlimited, I was shocked by the way that it shattered me but it broke something really core. Through those years I left over and over again, sometimes for months, and he always kept trying, always kept trying to sort it out even when he was ill-equipped to do that.

I could give you a long complicated version of the reasons he cheated on me, but the short one is that he was nihilistic at the time, didn't love himself much or value things in his life and he took something that felt good at the time without ever really thinking of the impact it would have on me.

I remember those days of desperately asking "why?", but I figured out that it's almost always that - when people cheat on people they love. They're a bit fucked up, and they do something that feels good without really thinking of the harm they are causing.

I waited for a very long time for it to feel like "the end", like it was really over, but the truth is that I think that pain does stay with you forever. It changed me a lot as a person, which is sad. I wish there was something better I could say. I am always inspired by people who shake these things off, but for me it was a life-changing thing to experience.

We stayed together - we are almost 8 years now after it all, and I can honestly say that I have the relationship with my now-husband that I wished I had all that time ago. He just wasn't able to give that, at that time. That isn't ideal, but that is just what happened.

What is true is that when someone has stayed with you through years of crying, screaming, meltdowns, and the inevitable depression that they do really love you, and it does build a kind of commitment and deep love that I probably would not have had if we had come to where we are via a less painful road.

I realised this past bank holiday weekend, that whatever it is I was looking for, I now have it. We weren't experts at getting here, but he never, ever gave up - no matter how many times I told him to, and we're happy now.

I suppose I shared this because I think a lot about other people going through this, wanting like I did to have answers or hope. I honestly think it's one of those things that is just devastating. Causes so much pain for so long. You do come out the other side - with or without the cheater - but no, nobody can ever take it away or make it un-happen.

What I would say is that the advice here was the best I got from anywhere - family and counsellors were far less useful, and if you are going through this I hope you listen better than I did, although it is very hard to find your strength when it's happening to you.

Sending love to all.

Of course that would be far worse.

I am amazed anyone read my post and thought there was anything romantic in it!

This type of post is weird for me.. I was the twenty years entrenched with children person.
He decided, and yes it is an absolute decision, to start an affair.
It caused utter chaos, despair and disbelief from me.
I had no idea..
He then went on to when I found out and was crying , to actually say to me, I'm off now, I'm leaving you and our two children, to go and I presume fuck her.
He then came back the next day like nothing had happened.
Looking back, it was obviously abusive, he wanted to punish me about the lack of sex I didn't give him.
He wanted a response from me.
I couldn't stand to look at him,
I actually went into a bottom block type place, I could not deal with his absolute othering of me..
When I came out after two weeks of good therapy, he said, I will look after you, it's you, you are the ill one!!!
I went back for my still young children.
I fucking hate him now, he still doesn't realise what he lost.

And when I say I hate him, I obviously don't.
I was a loving, really show my heart on my sleeve, person.
I am not that person now with him and the funny (🙄) thing is he is on dead bedroom boards on reddit wondering why on earth my wife doesn't want to have sex.
No awareness whatsoever.

So are you still with him?

You’ve done a lot of minimising

• The relationship was long distance
• He was just divorced
• He cheated with a friend
• He banged her again but only after we were on a break

You had a young enough child at the time. They’re an adult now but 10 years ago they likely weren’t.

We went through three years of complete hell. The rage in me was bottomless, the sadness seemed unlimited, I was shocked by the way that it shattered me but it broke something really core.

You may think it was worth it now. Your kid was likely carrying the cost from a depressed emotionally volatile mother fixated on a man who had cheated on her.

It’s telling you’re posting this as an ‘it was all worth it story’ but then say - I would tell my daughter to run out of the same situation.

You’re trauma bonded to this person but you know deep down it’s not healthy or good enough for someone you actually care about (ie daughter). It tells me you don’t respect or value yourself enough. To be honest with yourself you should edit the first post to say that.

I know you meant well by sharing your story but I don't think most people will resonate with it. It's one thing when you have children and mortgage together etc as that can make it very hard to leave.
However I would chose being happily single and free anytime over going through years of hell to fix a relationship with a cheater who I wasn't even co-habiting with.

People in happy relationships cheat all the time. There's research on it.

It doesnt sound like it was the right decision at all. It sounds like he totally disrespected you by cheating, got caught, and then you went through years of hell because of his actions and were horribly unhappy for a very long time, but for some reason stuck around, and now you're going through a good patch because he finally wore you down and convinced you to stay.

I see so many women making excuses about why their partner behaved awfully. Its really not that deep. Men who shag other women do it because they want to and it feels good.

If he does it again - and a lot of cheaters do - you're gonna have the horrible decision of whether to stay and accept that once a cheater always a cheater, and this is your life now - or you'll have to leave and feel regret that you wasted several years of life on this idiot.

It isn't something I would do, or encourage any friend to do.

"In truth, people do cheat in happy relationships if they are not happy with themselves. And cheating is more about lack of respect for yourself.
When people are cheated on, they internalise it, as evidence they weren't enough, they didn't make their partner happy or they aren't worthy of respect- but most of the time it isn't that at all."

Gosh OP. This is such nonsense! Why do women always do this?! Frantically make any excuse for men's appalling behaviour. If you want to stay with him then do, and if it makes you better to tell yourself this then go ahead. But... Its not really true, is it?

Wow, way to sidestep everything I said & pick up on one tiny detail! 👏

What I am saying is, your opening posts paint yourself as some kind of heroic martyr for working through those terrible "years of hell" to reach the sunny uplands of a now "wonderful relationship".

And the subtext is very clearly that other women could do the same if only they were as brave, as prepared to work at it as you.

Yet, as I pointed out before, the reality of your situation is very different from many of the women who sadly post on here regularly having faced infidelity.

And far from being heroic in any way, you stuck with a man who treated you badly in the very early days of your relationship when you were just long distance and decided to actually marry him after all that.

I don't find that an uplifting story at all. I think you excused his behaviour and much of what you have written is, indeed, romanticised nonsense.

You drip feed that it was a long distance casual relationship when this happened.

Bit niche!

This.

Well for the benefit of other readers, as I said - cheating is a sign of a lack of respect for yourself - not for the person you cheat on.

I can see why someone might say that if they've stayed in a relationship with someone who cheats on them, it's less painful than the truth. I disagree though - having sex/a relationship with someone else is fundamentally disrespectful towards the person you're lying to.

Absolutely!
Something really irked me about this thread last night, the title of it, the tone of it and then we discover, through the mother of all drip feeds, that the OP was basically dating the man long distance with very little at stake when she went through her "years of hell".
And all that stuff about respect when I wonder how much self respect you have to stick with and marry a man coming out of a divorce who was sleeping around at the very start of your relationship.

This is not, as the title seems to suggest, advice for people coping with infidelity. It's just a load of therapy-speak nonsense from someone who accepted and excused crap behaviour from a man that put them through years of upset.
I find it very odd.

Agreed.

It takes away informed consent.
It denies them the full information to make decisions about their own life and where to put their efforts.

There's no respect at all for the other person as an individual with choices.

It never ceases to amaze me how far women who stay with cheaters will go to to justify their (bad) decision.

I don’t agree with your first point at all. Someone can respect themselves and still be a cruel user who stays with someone they don’t respect because they get other benefits out of it (sex, housework, childcare, money, emotional support, someone to look after them in ill health or old age). They’re too lazy or comfortable to make themselves single to seek better. I would actually argue that a key personality trait of cheaters is too much self respect- arrogance.

Your philosophy is based entitled on the idea that people have to be broken to cheat. Maybe some people are. But really it isn’t sounds like something you need to tell yourself, so you can believe that your partner only cheated because they were broken themselves and that was something they could and have fixed. The alternative is accepting that they didn’t respect you enough to be loyal and you didn’t respect yourself enough to leave.

It feels like you’re making a lot of excuses for him. He cheated because the opportunity presented itself and he took it, and there’s nothing to stop it happening again. Your choice of course, but seems an awful lot to put yourself through when no kids, you could have just walked away for good. Everyone says they would leave, but most don’t, mainly as they have kids and feel that they owe it to them. Yes anyone can cheat, but someone who has already cheated clearly doesn’t have a strong moral compass so chances are he could do it again.

I think people have misread my post.

It's titled to those being cheated on, or thinking about cheating.

The point is to describe how awful it is to potential cheaters so they think about the pain they'll cause - hence it's also addressed to them.

The point is also that there is no easy ending. It's damage that is never erased.

There's nothing romantic or minimising about it. It's a real, honest description of what it's like to live through.

If some find that valuable, great, if they don't, then the thread isn't for them.

As a note a lot of the posts here are exactly why going through this is so isolating. So many people want to attack you for staying with someone who's unfaithful.

I hope those reading this who've made the same choice can see the point of sharing the gritty, real life, non fairtlytale version of it.

Good luck all.

I do have concerns for you when you say he didn’t go back to the affair partner when he did actually go back to the affair partner after seeing seeing how much he had hurt you - he took actions that he knew would hurt you again. Also why are you also minimising the label affair partner - it was the same person he repeatedly shagged and cheated on you with? It’s like you are gaslighting yourself.

I am not attacking your choice to stay, suffer and tolerate repeat infidelity but for your own healing / reality / self respect - it would be better for you to own it.

I also didn’t appreciate that your child would have been exposed to the three years of hell of your emotional collapse - and this man isnt even their father. My own children saw me suffer and I can see now that they are young adults that it deeply impacted them - they had the addition of their family imploding and father leaving the house before returning but there was deep collateral damage.

Disagreement or different opinions aren't the same as "attacking" you.

Obviously you're emotionally connected to your own narrative so it's hard not to take disagreement as criticism.

I do think that it was a long distance relationship was a very relevant point to omit initially.

I'm surprised you think you would have left him if you had been married/living together. It tends to be that the opposite is the case.

Also, I don't think your contention that people who have cheated before and their relationships survive are less likely to cheat again. I think the opposite is the case.

I don't understand your choice, tbh. You could have ditched him early doors and saved yourself years of pain and very likely be with someone else and married by now. Instead you're with a man you know I'd capable of cheating on you.

Is not I'd

I hope you are genuinely happy and secure now, however I can't get on board with any of it.

My lived experience is not that cheaters aren't happy in themselves, it's that they are arrogant, weak, selfish people who either don't care about the consequences, or are too short sighted to really see them in advance. Or in the case of my exh, so overinflated by the sense of his own importance that he genuinely thought I would forgive him. Incorrectly.

In my view, trampling over the boundaries of what should be the most secure, safe and emotionally exclusive space for a person, is the most disrespectful shitty thing that one person can (legally) do to another.

Maybe some people are unhappy, either in their relationships or with themselves, but it doesn't excuse making poor choices and so detrimentally affecting another person. Yes everybody could theoretically cheat, like everyone could be an axe murderer, but most of us aren't, and never consciously would.

If you are at the other end of it in whatever shape that is, then I'm happy for you, but I think you are probably in the minority.

This is not "minimising", it is applying context.

The context was very important to me in the decisions I made.

I know for certain had the context been different, I would not have been able to move on from it.

I, for example, would have found it impossible to move on from an emotional affair - for example texts to another woman saying "I love you" or "I wish I could be with you" would be a complete dealbreaker / game ender for me, whereas sex without those things was something I could personally move on from.

Each person is different, and different contexts would matter in different ways to different people but for me those factors were very important in finding mental peace with it.

Also, my "child" was a grown up and away at university. I didn't handle being cheated on as well as many people would have. For certain I am sure many people would have been far better at that. But what I do know is that I was a brilliant mother all the way through my situation - as well as other tough times in my life - as like many women who go through this or other difficult things - kids come first.

I understand this isn't something you would do, and I respect that completely - in fact, as I've said, I'd encourage most people to leave. But I don't think understanding the psychology behind something is the same as excusing it. The research on infidelity is actually quite consistent on this - it correlates strongly with self-esteem, shame and emotional avoidance in the person who cheats. That isn't a defence of the behaviour, it's just an explanation of it, and for me understanding it was part of how I found peace with it. I wish you well.