Forgiving and forgetting. Rebuilding after betrayal.

[YourJoyousOrca]

My wife and I have been together for over 20 years and we have a young son.

About a year ago I discovered messages and explicit photos being exchanged between my wife, her best friend, and her best friend’s husband. I also found evidence that they had arranged to meet up without me, and I genuinely believe it was leading towards a sexual encounter involving the three of them. I confronted my wife before that happened.
She insists it was “just fun”, that nothing physical ever happened, and that she never actually went through with it. Whether that’s true or not, the trust I had in her disappeared overnight.

Since then, her friendship with this woman has continued. They’re now saying goodbye because the friend is moving away, and there have been multiple weekends away, leaving celebrations, and my wife has had several tattoos to commemorate that friendship and those memories.

The problem I’m struggling with is that every time I see those tattoos, I’m reminded of the betrayal. They aren’t just tattoos to me, they’re permanent reminders of the person she chose to risk our marriage for.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to be physically or emotionally close to my wife again. The thought of sex feels completely wrong because those images and messages are never far from my mind.

People often say, “If you choose to stay, you have to move on.” But how? I genuinely don’t understand how someone does that when the reminders are permanent.

Leaving isn’t something I feel I can do. We have a child together, and the idea of breaking up our family feels unbearable. So I feel trapped between staying in a marriage where I don’t know how to reconnect, and leaving a family I desperately don’t want to lose.

Has anyone genuinely been in a similar situation? If you stayed after betrayal, how did you ever get past the resentment and the constant reminders? Or is there a point where you have to accept that some things simply can’t be repaired?

You need to go to couples counselling. It's such a difficult thing to work through alone, I think it's beneficial to have a neutral person to guide you and make sure that you both have the space to really talk about how you feel. Don't think it will be an easy process, because it won't. But hopefully by the end of it, you will both have a clearer idea of what each other are feeling about what happened and find a way to move forward. For what it's worth, I think forgiveness is contingent on your partner truly understanding the pain that her actions caused you and expressing genuine remorse for that. Then I think you can start to forgive but I'm not sure you'll ever really forget.

I agree with PP that therapy is needed here. But not for you as a couple, for you both individually. For her, why on earth did she find “fun” in planning to betray her spouse, doing something that she knew would devastate you? For the record, I utterly guarantee it is nothing to do with you, it’s weakness, a selfishness in her. She needs to face that and address it.
And therapy for you to help process that betrayal.

I think your marriage is over and you need to start a new chapter. Yes get therapy to help you process the emotions and practically start getting your life organised. Take every day as it comes and make sure your mental health and well being come first.

Your wife needs to get very very busy trying to understand for her why she did this. Once she's worked through that and the shame involved and started to see your point of view you will and start to feel see a shift. On your side you need to grieve. Unless she works on this you will stay stuck. You will never forget either way but forgetting totally is not a bad thing. Watch videos on Affair Recovery channel on YouTube.