Trying to rebuild after his affair, but still feeling guarded

[DeepSea1990]

Hi all

Betrayal trauma / reconciliation

My husband had a year long affair a round two years ago now, I uncovered the truth multiple times and he kept saying he’d stopped but never did - we split after a year because I felt like I was going crazy, but we have two young children together. He persistently said he wanted me, didn’t want her etc.. she was half his age, impulsivity, infatuation etc..

Anyway fast forward and he stayed seeing her and lying for 6 months through separation but I desperately wanted my family back. I never begged, but his constant contradiction always made me feel like I could have it all back.. I hate being away from our boys who were 7 and 10 at the time, and very confused… it was absolutely awful. I genuinely shield my kids from this, he is at work the majority of the time so i am always happy and act normally around them.

The thing is he moved back in a few months ago, is saying he is trying with me but my guard is so high up, I can’t let it down, he’s in a separate bedroom to me and there is no relationship between us at all.. I can still get upset sometimes - he is reasonable about it but says it’s in the past and he’d like to forget about it. I feel like he has no understanding of how much damage he did to me…

Also he works and earns more than double my wage, we work together at his company and have done since it opened (she was an employee), so I would need to ship the kids to a new house, a lower lifestyle, I’d need a new job which would likely be less flexible, and I don’t want to not be part of their lives for part of the week. Being without them through separation was like losing a limb, I know this is normal but it’s so unfair… It felt like a constant punch in the gut.

Does anyone have any advice? We tried marriage counselling during his affair but he didn’t stop, he’s reluctant to go again which I suggested as we’re not moving anywhere, I went to therapy and found it really useful but have stopped now, he also went to individual therapy for a few months and said he’s learnt about himself, and has stopped the affair. He also said he can't try anything with me or to get closer to me as i am so guarded, he is 'waiting' for me to move past this, and he wants to forget it all as a big mistake.

How do people come back from this… Or how do you move forward… the fear of being alone and it being ultimately my decision to break my family up feels huge 😣. The separation was awful, he was trying to get 50/50 contact even though our roles were never this way, and i feel like he will take everything away from me if i try to leave again.

I am 35 btw.. and genuinely thought my life was pretty great up until this happened.

Thanks for reading

I bet he'd like to forget about it, that would be very convenient for him i expect, but you will never forget about it as long as he is in your life.

Its time to be brave and make moves to get him completely out of your life. Yes, access to the children is important but that's all it should be.

Only then will.you start.to feel better, when your priority is you and your children.

You are far too young to accept this half life he is offering you. You will be fine without him, it will be different but you will adjust and make something better. He kept going back, he kept lying and now he wants you to just get over it. If you stay with him you will never have peace again. Your children will grow up with a tense, unhappy mother. And I hate to say it, but it will happen again. He is a deeply flawed person and will always put his own needs first. Don’t let him ruin your life. You deserve better.

The Best bet is just to accept the lower standard of living because that’s the only thing that will give you any peace. Get him out of your life as much as possible and in a few years you might end up moving on with someone much nicer

You have only ONE way of getting out of this and that is to get this complete selfish arsehole out of your life.

I have been in a similar position in the past. It hurts, but these sort of men will always return to the same behaviour. You don’t deserve this and as another poster pointed out… you will end up stressed, burnt out and unhappy. And that’s not good for the children either.

When I decided enough was enough, after 10 years of betrayal, I won’t lie, it was hard. Really hard. We have 2 kids together and separating was heartbreaking. I had to change my standard of living but we adapted. You can do it, you just need to have faith in yourself and believe that you deserve to be treated better. I will say though, you will know for yourself when you can’t carry on with it any more. Nobody here will be able to convince you otherwise. It will be time when you feel it’s time to leave. Good luck OP. I hope everything works out well for you x

I think this marriage is over. I don’t think you’ll be able to move on and honestly why should you?

Is this really the role model you want to give your kids? It's hard to move on but you deserve so much better and they do too.

It's you who is choosing this op. You've decided it is better than the alternate . Plenty stay for money and lifestyle . I couldn't but im.Not you

Well, he’s a copper bottomed bell end! Made a lovely job of turning it all around and putting it all on you - it’s YOUR fault that he can’t get closer to you, he’s waiting for YOU to forget about it and move one, he’s done the work on himself and is all fixed, it’s YOU that’s stalling his plans to sweep it all under the rug and pretend he didn’t betray you and lie to your face every single day for over a year. What a piece of shit.

He pissed all over your marriage and family, completely destroyed the trust you had in him and is now putting the blame onto you for not “getting over it” according to the timescale he would like, for his convenience.

I’m really sorry this happened to you. It happened to me as well. My experience is that most people simply can’t and don’t “come back from this”. There are occasions where couples say that cheating made them reevaluate their marriage and they both worked incredibly hard to get through it and come out the other side stronger than ever. But, in reality I think these are pretty rare and sometimes things are smoothed over on the surface but hurt and resentment simmer away.

I don’t want to sound unkind, but honestly I don’t think it sounds like you are going to be one of these rare, unicorn couple - the cheater has to be willing to meet their spouse much more than halfway and put in an awful lot of work, over whatever timescale the spouse needs. Your husband is refusing to go back to counselling and already putting pressure and blame onto you for not “healing” to his time scale.

Frankly, he needs to bugger right off. It will be very difficult, you will have to cope with a house move, a reduced standard of
living and some time away from your DC. But, you are so young - you probably don’t feel it, but you are - and it would be an absolute waste of years of your one, precious life, to spend it with this man, in this marriage. You have got so much left ahead of you, don’t sentence yourself to being shackled to this man and living a charade.

Trust is like a glass bottle. Once smashed, it can’t just be stuck back together again. To me, it’s not the fact that he doesn’t understand the magnitude of the damage he’s done to your marriage and the emotional harm he’s inflicted on you, it’s the fact that he isn’t interested in seeing it or understanding it. He wants you to shut up and go back to how things were before, when things will actually never be like they were - not for you, anyhow.

I’m a fair bit older than you. I was shocked and devastated when I discovered my ex’s multiple affairs that spanned years. Betrayal trauma was very difficult to cope with - not only did it destroy the here and now of the marriage and the future i expected us to have, but it also destroyed the past and the seemingly happy memories we’d made together. It made me not be able to trust myself - I’d misjudged him so completely and been so easy to deceive, how could I ever trust my own judgement ever again, let alone trust anyone else? I felt like a complete idiot. But I knew that I would never trust him,
love him or feel safe with him ever again. So there was no point in even entertaining the idea of trying to work it out. In some ways that made my situation more simple than yours, I suppose.

What I will say is that getting on for seven years later I am much happier and stronger than I ever was with him. DC are fine, actually much better than fine! It hasn’t always been easy - both of my parents have died and I’ve a health wobble, but I can promise you that’s it’s much easier to deal with stressful life events when you haven’t got an emotional/energy
vampire making things your fault and dragging you down.

I wish I could give you a huge hug. You didn’t deserve any of this and none of it was or is your fault

OP what actions / changes has he made to reassure you this will not happen again? Not words, actions.
In the circumstances you describe I could not forgive him. I would not reconcile. It is going to be hard but ultimately I would leave him. He may ask for 50/50 but realistically if he has never actually done that, most likely either he won’t when it comes down to it or if he does, it won’t last.
Please be clear in your own mind though that HE broke the family up with the decisions HE took and continues to take. You have done more then could reasonably be expected to try to save the relationship but it takes 2.
Don’t force yourself to take the crumbs from his table. It will be hard but you can do it. Start by getting some good legal advice.

Step one : look for another job. You need your work and pay to be separate from him. He is holding all the strings right now, and that needs to change.
Step two: get some counselling yourself.
Step 3: consult a good lawyer.
You don’t need to make any decisions right now, but you do need to be less dependent on him.

Thank you for this - I do now have a separate bank account, but I am not prepared to get a new job. I built the business model with him and am a director - legally I don’t think stepping out is the best idea. I’m also on payroll so have employment rights as a long standing employee. I think I was dependent on him but then realised my work also has a value to it, so I take a lot less but it is mine..

Why is he taking so much more out of the business than you?

You will never get past it until you go through it - he has to be prepared to have the difficult conversations with you, in or out of marriage counselling.

I believe in getting people to apologise for everything individually, as it holds them accountable for all the shit they put you through and makes them more aware if they try it again. So I'd say to him, if he wants you to put it behind you, first he needs to fully acknowledge what he actually did. List all the times he left you alone to care for DC while he was out with her, all the money he spent on her not you, all the hours he dialled out of daily life because his head was elsewhere. In partciular, list every time you can remember that he told you you were mad and imagining things.

He has to apologise by repeating what he did. Not just 'I am sorry' but 'I am sorry that when you confronted me in September last year, I told you you were mad and imagining things. You are not mad. You are sane. You were not imagining things. I was lying to you. I am sorry for belittling you, lying to you, trying to gaslight you into thinking it was in your head. It was cruel and manipulative of me to behave in this way and I promise you I won't again.'

It could take time to work through every small moment you recall and apologise for each one individually like he really means it. If he pushes back on this, just ask why he thinks it is okay for him to cause you so much pain but not okay for him to make the effort to apologise fully, in order to take the pain away. Why is he so willing to let you feel deep discomfort, but not feel it himself?

I am certain that anyone who is not prepared to make the effort to do this is not truly repentant and just wants an easy life, and for their partner to be submissive and malleable and bury the pain. Please don't. It won't be good for your physical or mental health or for your marriage.

You're never going to trust him. You're flogging a dead horse. Sorry

Because I work around half the hours he does.. we have two children so I want to be at home for them.. therefore work around school hours x

I’ve been where you are op, please don’t do this to yourself! He hasn’t changed and never will. He has no incentive to change because he knows he’s got you where he wants you. Please kick him out. You are scared of the changes it will bring but in a year or two you will feel very differently and will be far happier than you ever will be with him. You will just keep on repeatedly getting hurt if you stay with him, and you may think your kids don’t know but trust me they know something is very wrong and it will eventually destroy their childhood! My biggest regret in life was not leaving immediately, i could have saved myself and more importantly my kids so much heartache and stress.

The thing is, he lied the whole time he was having the affair, and continued to lie even after he said it was over. Why would believe him now? Of course you can’t go back to how it was before. Even if you could rebuild trust, that would take a long time ( longer than the affair lasted) and would require a lot of positive input from him. Your whole being is telling you he can’t be trusted , and you are right.
So whether you leave him now or 5 years down the line, by which time he will probably have cheated again, you need to separate yourself from him.
Of course things will change, but you have to start future proofing your life. It’s no good saying you can’t get a different job, you need to think of a way forward. Maybe keep the directorship, do part time hours at a time convenient to you ( eg evening) and get another job during the day? Part time if necessary, but something that is yours alone. He will end up shafting you, and you need to be ready for it.

Interesting, so when he tries to push for 50/50, you can point out you will therefore be increasing your hours as he reduces his as he will now need to be home for the children too on his days. Be interesting to hear what he has to say to that.

Have you seen a solicitor to find out what you might get if you divorce. Knowledge is power etc and I think it will help you work out what you want/need to do next.

So when you said ‘he earns double my wage’ you didn’t mean per hour, you meant he works more hours than you as you are doing more of the childcare of your joint children?

You're going to a lot of effort, for a complete wanker.

Please leave him.

My kids dad had an affair and left, I was early 30s and thought my life was made.

It was devastating but I didn’t go back and I am now a few years down the line and so so so glad I didn’t go back. He won’t get 50/50 custody and the kids opinions will matter now anyway as they’re big enough.

Please don’t give this waste of space man the rest of your life because you want to martyr yourself for your kids. So so so many kids have split up parents and theyre fine!

There's plenty of good advice on the thread. I think if you're unwilling to leave, change your job or compromise your lifestyle, the only thing left is acceptance.

You'll need to accept you will waste away in misery waiting for closure he is not prepared to give you.

You have to accept that you're staying with a man who is selfish amd cares about himself above all.
**he cheated on you amd ruined your family as you knew it.
**when in a relationship he will leave the bulk of childcare to you; but leave and he'll fight for 50/50 for whatever reason.
**this is a man who even when he lost you, was unwilling to let go of the other woman.
**now you're back, he's maintained the distance between you and the only way he'll bridge that gap, is if you bury your pride amd your hurt and sweep all the damage he caused under the rug.

If you stay, you have to swallow all of that. The best place to start is to work on ridding yourself of any love and emotional attachment; and focus on how the marriage benefits you and your children financially and physically. It's not what I think is best, but it's the only way you survive with him.

Yes, I work less hours much my choice to be honest - I’m happy earning less to be with my children as much as possible. But I have done courses / a degree on a night time while he was working and they were in bed so I do try to make sure I’m as current as possible in ref to career!