Successful reconciliation stories after cheating

[Strawberrina]

Hi Mumsnetters,

My husband had an affair with a younger work colleague in 2024. We reconciled and are working through things and fixing our marriage. I have read many stories here on Mumsnet of married couples reconciling after one of them had an affair, but then eventually deciding to separate for various reasons. Please share with me successful reconciliation stories.

I read that the happier the marriage prior to the affair the less likely a couple will reconcile (and be happy).

This may be nonsense of course.

But I wondered if this is because of the personality traits of the cheat, meaning they are selfish and think they deserve more. Or if the betrayed can never see the cheat the same again as they genuinely liked them prior. The little niggles are no longer overlooked. Or if the reconciled marriage will never be as good as it was.

I think some people cheat because a marriage only meets 80% of their ‘needs’ and selfishly some people think they deserve 100% to be met.

If a marriage was struggling and both were unhappy they can pull together to make it better than it was prior.

I put ‘needs’ in brackets as post cheating a betrayed spouse did not have their need for loyalty commitment and honesty met. I think unmet needs is nonsense. No one on earth will ever meet someone’s needs 100% (at least not without lying and people pleasing - no disagreements is not a good thing).

I’d come on to say many men still cheat feet discovery and then read this.

As a single parent I dated a Manx Turned out that he had been seeing me whilst ‘doing the hard and oh so sincere work’ with his wife to help them recover from a previous affair of his. Absolute bastard.

Affairs are highly enjoyable for men. Once they have a taste for it, they really don’t want to give it up.

And the wife can never be sure if they have.

I think there's a small possibility that your marriage can be saved but only if your husband's feelings for the other woman magically disappeared. I am sorry.

OP if you are telling yourself she is manipulative and he is weak then the person being manipulated is you, by yourself. Stop this infantalising of your husband. He is not some poor weak soul taken possession of by a demonic OW. He is a fully grown adult man who had such a deep and intense affair thar he fell in love. That commitment doesn’t happen because someone is weak, but because they are actively pursuing something they want.

He never even removed himself from her. She removed herself from him. The person who took the action that led to an improvement in your marriage was her, not him.

Stay if you want, believe the narrative you are telling yourself if you want. Rebuild your marriage on sand and self-deception if you want. You are clearly never leaving. You even have two homes so it would have been easy to leave. But you still stayed with a man who never even cut the OW off. He even chats to her socially at conferences! And still you stay.

Threads on mumsnet on reconciliation always (understandably) bring posters who tried and failed, but the statistics don’t show this played out irl. According to peer reviewed studies-

60-70% of couples stay married after affairs of those:- About 57% of couples remain married at the 5-year mark if the unfaithful partner willingly confesses and enters therapy. That number drops to roughly 20% if the affair was kept secret, hidden, or minimized until discovered.

These statistics are interestingly far higher than if affair partners get together which puts success at 3-5% at the 5 year mark.

It was these multiple studies that made affair psychologists look at the unhappy marriage/finding soulmate narrative for affairs as clearly only true in some cases and a greater focus on flaws in the character of the cheat. That’s why many posters have talked about remorse and therapy for the cheat.

@Strawberrina your issue isn’t whether some random poster via mumsnet has successfully reconciled it is if YOU can successfully reconcile and your want to do that with a unremorseful husband. You’re not prepared to challenge or put on firm boundaries around his contact and behaviour over this woman. You are in a failed reconciliation. I’m not saying he can’t find remorse I’m saying you’re not going to get there while accepting his sad sausage nonsense.

I’m so SO sorry to read of your loss of your lovely husband. I’m so glad you had happy years together post affair and he showed you the man you always had faith in and believed was there.

@FairyMaclary i think the 80% needs met is an interesting theory. The idea is that no human being can meet your needs 100% so a spouse often meets 80%. Those with healthy mindsets/egos/esteem whatever you call it can fill the 20% themselves. They can validate themselves but cheats need that validation from another human. It’s transactional. Theory is that when they leave for the 20% they’ve lost the 80%… that’s when they almost invariably lose the plot and beg the spouse back. It sits alongside therapy after as if you reconcile you need to work out how to create the 20% for yourself. That’s the basic theory I believe. I can see how it works to explain why it’s weirdly more successful to reconcile with your original spouse than to run off into the sunset with an affair partner but I guess there’s also arguments against it.

“My point is, even after 16yrs his default in times of stress was to look for validation in someone else.”

This is exactly it. My ex has repeated this pattern with every relationship, it’s so clear to see from the outside.

You wish he’d let you go the first time? Did you not have a choice in the matter?

Obviously what I mean is I wish he hadn’t asked to try again. Of course I had a choice in the matter, but blame me for being fooled if you want.

No. No blame at all.

People are expert manipulators and are clever at offering salves and fix alls to those they have badly wounded.

The marriages that stay together aren’t necessarily happy marriages though. Some will be but others not. There have been plenty of threads with women who stayed who say they wish they had not, but feel too old to leave now, as the marriage never really recovered.

There are many practical and social barriers to leaving. Not everyone who stays is doing so gladly.

I think that is too simplistic. He’s not a manipulator, he just isn’t, he truly meant it at the time, he’s not smart enough and I’m too astute to be manipulated, at least by him. I just wish he’d acknowledged he is a deeply damaged man and either got the help he needed or let me go, actually I will rephrase that, removed himself. He did neither and he ultimately hit self destruct, and I was collateral damage. He hasn’t sailed off into the sunset without a care. I’m far from excusing his choices, he made them freely but he’s ultimately come off worse than I have.

Did you not say you were fooled @Avictimofcompassion

I’m not sure I can get 26 years into a neat little package for you.

I’m not asking you to. You said that you were fooled. And then you said you are too clever to be manipulated and he’s not clever enough to manipulate.

Fooled and manipulated are different things. Very subtle difference but a difference none the same. I probably took part in my own fooling because of what I wanted to believe and because when he said he’d never do it again we both believed it. he fooled himself too.
Manipulation suggests that he simply said what he said to get the outcome he wanted knowing he didn’t mean it. I didn’t say I was too clever, just that in 16 years I’d have seen through it.

Right ho.

It’s all such mental gymnastics when we just want to believe there is a future together when someone deceives and cheats and betrays. Which is an active choice of manipulation. He would have lied and made deceitful choices to keep cheating and to preserve the status quo.

He fooled himself too - letting him off the hook. Poor baby. Deceiving himself.

As soon as someone cheats, the only way to keep the relationship going is for the betrayed party to swallow the shit sandwich every single day (credit to chump lady) and to forfeit their own pride and dignity.

‘As soon as someone cheats, the only way to keep the relationship going is for the betrayed party to swallow the shit sandwich every single day (credit to chump lady) and to forfeit their own pride and dignity.’

Depends what your drivers are I guess. My drivers for happiness are not and were not at the point of my reconciliation my ‘pride and dignity’ they were overcoming the odds to grow as a family, laugh, in jokes together, the joy of watching our children move through inevitable stages, creating memories TOGETHER… if that’s my ‘shit sandwich’ I’ll take it!

No, it is to accept that your partner cheated on you, lied to you and betrayed you. That is the shit sandwich. Not the memory making etc.

More mental gymnastics.

@SoBoredOfSelfDoubtHowToGetOut of course I have to live with the fact he’s lied and cheated on me. It’s been years now, I accepted it and moved on fwiw.

But without being pedantic that was not what you said. It was the harping on about ‘pride and dignity’. I just don’t see how his behaviour and actions have forfeited my sense of ‘pride and dignity’, I just don’t centre him that way or see him as a tool to validate myself and who I am as a person. If other people do, that’s on them… but it’s a little pathetic!

@Sunshinemoonlightboogie How long ago was your husband's affair? And was it physical or emotional? Sorry if you have mentioned it before and I have missed.

@Strawberrina It was years ago, nearly a decade. It was both. It was extraordinarily hard at the time and it’s fair to say no one ended up mentally and emotionally unscathed from it all, including my husband and the OW. But my husband cut ALL contact and has never discussed his feelings for her with me after choosing to reconcile, other than his absence of anything towards her. He didn’t even want to hate her, just nothing. He has made huge lifestyle changes to support his road to being a safe person for me and our family. And honestly I am very happy I stayed. I always knew that I would not enter another relationship if I left and that it was him or single motherhood, for the sake of my kids. Recently I have been beyond relieved to have chosen this path, as I have had to navigate some tricky times, he has been solid, dependable and caring, and my safe harbour. I do believe reconciliation can work, I have friends who are also reconciled, all are happy they did but they all have cheating partners who move heaven and earth to make sure they feel safe. And this is what I am worried you are missing. Please don’t think I’m being hard, I am on your side, but sometimes we need to set very clear boundaries to keep ourselves safe.