After the Affair – How to Forgive, and Heal a Relationship From Infidelity

After the Affair - How to Forgive and Heal From Infidelity

Infidelity happens for plenty of reasons. None of them good ones. It happens because of ego or stupidity or breakage. Or because of smugness or ignorance or a widening ache or an emptiness or the need to know ‘what else is there’. It happens because of arrogance or a lack of self-control or because of that thing in all of us that wants to feel adored or heroic or important or powerful or as though we matter. It happens because there’s a moment when the opportunity for this to happen is wide open and full of aliveness and temptation and it’s exciting and it’s there and it acts like it can keep a secret and as though it won’t’ do any damage at all.

It happens because of lies, the big ones, the ones we tell ourselves – ‘it won’t mean anything’, ‘nobody will know’, ‘it won’t do any harm’. It happens because there is a moment that starts it all. One small, stupid, opportunistic moment that changes everything, but acts as though it will change nothing. A moment where there’s an almighty collision between the real world with its real love and real people and real problems that all of us go through, and the world that is forbidden and exciting and hypnotic with promises. And all the while these worlds, they feel so separate, but they become tangled and woven, one into the other, and then that real world with its real love and its real people are never the same again.

Whatever the reason for an affair, the emotional toll on the people and the relationship is brutal. Infidelity steals the foundations on which at least one person in the relationship found their solid, safe place to be. It call everything into question – who we believe we are, what we believe we had, or were working towards, our capacity to love, to trust, and our faith in our judgement. It beats down self-esteem and a sense of place and belonging in the relationship for both people, but it doesn’t have to mean an end to the relationship.

Does infidelity mean a falling out of love?

Anything we humans are involved in is never black and white. The versions of grey can make good humans look like bad ones it can make love that is real feel dead for a while. Most people who have affairs are in love with their original partners. And most people who cheat aren’t cheaters. They aren’t liars and they aren’t betrayers and they aren’t bad. What they are is human, and even the good ones will make catastrophic mistakes sometimes. We all will.

Affairs often aren’t about people wanting to be in a different relationship, but about wanting the relationship they are in to be different. Relationships change shape over time and with that, sometimes the very human needs that we all have will get left behind. These needs include validation, love, connection, affection, intimacy and nurturing – but there are plenty more. This is no excuse for an affair, but understanding what drove the affair is key to being able to move forward. It’s a critical part of healing the relationship and any repairing any breaks in the armour around you both that made it possible for someone else to walk through.

Does an affair mean the end of the relationship?

Affairs will mean the end of some relationships. Others will tolerate the betrayal and although they might never thrive, they’ll stay intact. For some people this will be enough. For others, an affair can be a turning point, an opportunity to grow separately and together, and reconnect in a way that is richer, stronger, closer and more sustainable. For this to happen, it will take time, reflection, brutal honesty and an almighty push from both people. 

There are plenty of ways to hurt a relationship. Infidelity is just one of them.

Affairs cause devastating breakage in relationships, but they aren’t the only thing that can hurt a relationship. Sometimes an affair is a symptom of breakage, as much as a cause. There are plenty of other ways to hurt a relationship – withholding love, affection or approval, a lack of physical or emotional intimacy, and negativity, judgement, or criticism. All of us, even the most loving, committed devoted of us will do these things from time to time.

How does an affair happen?

There is no doubt that infidelity is a devastating act of betrayal, but it can also be an expression of loss or loneliness, or the need for novelty, autonomy, power, intimacy, affection, or the need to feel loved, wanted and desired. These are all valid, important needs and in no way represent a neediness or lack of self-reliance. They are the reasons we come together, fall in love and fight to stay in love. They are also the reason relationships fall apart.

We humans exist at our very best when we are connected with other humans, especially ones that we love and adore and feel connected to. The needs for human connection, intimacy, love, and validation are primal. They can be ignored, pushed down, or denied, but they will never disappear. These needs are so important, that if they remain unmet for too long, they will create a tear in the relationship wide enough for someone else to walk through and claim the opportunity to meet those needs that, when met, can fuel intimacy, desire, alchemy, and attraction.

When an important need remains unmet, there are two options – and only two. We can either let go of the need, or change the environment in which we’re attempting to meet the need. It will be this way for all of us. When the need is an important one, letting go won’t be an option. This will create a splintering in the relationship, and the very real temptation to change the environment, as in, find someone else to meet the need/s that we actually want met by our partners.

Affairs often aren’t about wanting the person who is the target of the affair, but about wanting the way that person meets a need. If the person having the affair could have anything, it would most likely be to have the person they love – the one they are hurting – to be the one to meet the need. But things don’t always happen the way we want. And needs get hungry and people get tempted.

When affairs happen, it’s likely that at least one of three things has happened for the person having the affair:

  1. an awareness that ‘something’ is missing, without awareness of what that something is; 
  2. an awareness of exactly what is missing – an important need that has been hungry for too long – but a catastrophic lack of honesty and openness within the relationship about this; 
  3. repeated unsuccessful attempts to be honest and open about the existence of the unmet need, and repeated unsuccessful attempts to have it met within the relationship.

How to heal from an affair, together or apart.

For a relationship to heal from betrayal, there is a need for brutal honesty from both people. If a relationship has been devastated by an affair, healing will take a lot of reflection on what went wrong, and what is needed to make it better, but if both people believe the relationship is worth fighting for, it can find its way back. 

First of all, where do things stand.

Is the affair over? Or has it been scared into submission, just for now.

If the affair is still going, and you’re pretending to work on your relationship, just take your partner’s heart in your hand and squeeze it hard. It will hurt a lot less and it will do less damage to your relationship. If the affair is genuinely finished, the one who has been hurt will need ongoing confirmation of this for a while. Probably for a long while. This is why, for the person who had the affair, the privacy that was there before the affair (texts, phone calls, messages, emails, info about where you are, what you’re doing, and who you’re doing it with), will be gone for a while. Some questions to explore together:

  • When did it end?
  • How did it end?
  • How do you know you won’t go back?
  • How do I believe that it’s over?
  • What if he or she gets in touch? What will you do?
  • What moves have you made to stop them contacting you?
  • You risked a lot for the affair to continue. What stopped the affair being worth the risk? What might make it worth the risk again? 
  • I’m suspicious. I’m paranoid. I’m insecure. I’m scared. I don’t trust you. I never used to feel like this, but now I do. I want to trust you again and I want to stop feeling like this. I want to stop checking and wondering and panicking when I can’t reach you, but I’m scared that if I stop, I’ll miss something. What can you do to help me feel safe again.

Is there genuine regret and remorse? 

Healing can only begin when the person who has had the affair owns what has happened, and shows regret and remorse, not just for the damage and pain the affair has caused, but for starting the affair in the first place. What’s important is that there is a commitment to protecting the relationship above all else, and letting go of the affair.

  • Would you still regret having the affair it if it wasn’t discovered? 
  • What do you regret about the affair?
  • How do you feel about it ending?
  • How do you feel about what it’s done to us and to me?
  • What was the story you told yourself to let the affair keep going?
  • Where does that story sit with you now?

Do you both genuinely want the relationship? And be honest.

Is there anything in this relationship that’s worth fighting for? Is there a chance of love and connection? Or will it only ever be one of convenience and a way to meet mutually shared goals, such as raising children. There are no right or wrong answers, but if one person is satisfied with a relationship of convenience and the other wants love and connection, the healing isn’t going to happen. What’s more likely to happen is that the relationship will be fertile ground for loneliness, resentment and bitterness, and it will stay vulnerable. For a relationship to work, the needs of each person have to be compatible. They don’t have to be the same, but they have to be compatible. 

Do you genuinely want each other?

The truth is that sometimes, people outgrow relationships. We can’t meet everyone’s needs and sometimes, the relationship might no longer be able to meet the important needs of one or both of you. Sometimes letting go with love and strength is better than letting the relationship dies a slow, bitter death.

  • How to you feel about [the person you had the affair with]?
  • What do you miss?
  • How do you feel about me?
  • What did you miss?
  • What do you miss about me now?
  • What made the risk of losing me worth it?
  • What’s changed?
  • What is it about me that’s keeping you here?
  • What is it about us that’s worth fighting for?
  • How do you each about the relationship? 
  • How do you feel about each other? Can either of you see that changing?
  • What is it about the relationship that’s worth fighting for?
  • What is it about each other that’s worth fighting for?
If the decision is to stay, how to forgive and move forward.

How did the affair become possible?

For the relationship to heal, and for there to be any chance of forgiveness, there has to be an understanding of how both people may have contributed to the problem. What was missing in the relationship and how can that change? This is not to excuse the person who had the affair. Not at all. What it’s doing is finding the space in which the relationship can grow. If both people are claiming to have done everything they could and the affair happened, then there’s no room for growth and the relationship will stay vulnerable. 

Let your energy turn to an honest and open exploration of the motive behind the affair. This will probably hurt to hear, but it’s not about blame. It is about responsibility, as in response-ability – the ability to respond. There can’t be an empowered, effective response if there is no awareness around what drove the affair and what needs to change in the relationship.

The person who had the affair delivered the final blow, but it’s likely that there were things that lead up to the relationship becoming vulnerable. Healing will happen if both people can own their part in this. This doesn’t excuse the affair, but it will help it to make some sort of sense. Many hard conversations will need to happen.

If you were the one who was betrayed, you’ll be hurt and angry and scared, and you’ll have every right to feel that way. As much as you are able to, try to be open to hearing the information and make it safe to explore. This is the information that will grow your relationship and repair the holes that have made it vulnerable. 

Somewhere along the way, the person who had the affair and the person he or she had the affair with, had information about your relationship that you didn’t have. This was vital information that fuelled the affair, sustained it, and drained your relationship. They knew what the affair had that the relationship didn’t. This is the information you need to know for the relationship to get its power back.

If you were the one who had the affair, it’s critical to look with honesty, courage and an open heart, at what you were getting from the affair that you weren’t getting from your relationship. It’s not enough to fall back on insecurities or deficiencies or your own personal flaws as excuses. This doesn’t answer anything and it lacks the courage and commitment needed to start putting your relationship and the one you love, back together. 

Explore together:

  • What did the affair give you that our relationship didn’t?
  • How did the affair make you feel that was different to the way you felt with me? More powerful? More noticed? Wanted? Loved? Desired? Nurtured? What was it?
  • Have you ever felt that way with me?
  • When did you stop feeling that way?
  • What changed?
  • What was the biggest difference between [the other person] and me?
  • What would you like me to do more of? Less of?
  • I know you want this relationship to work, but at the moment it’s not. What’s the biggest thing you need to be different. And then I’ll tell you mine.

Be honest. Can you meet the need? And do you want to?

    When you can understand what drove the affair, you can look at whether that need/s can be met within your relationship. Sometimes it becomes a case of either not being able to meet the need, or resentment and hurt wiping out the desire to even try. Both people need to honestly look at what they want from the relationship and what they are able to give to the relationship moving forward.

    Sometimes the distance between two people becomes so vast that it can’t be put back together. If that’s the case, acknowledge it and decide openly and with love and strength, whether or not the relationship is worth saving. Nothing is more painful than fighting to hold on to something that isn’t fighting to hold back. If this is the case, be honest. Relationships in which somebody has important needs that can’t be relinquished and that aren’t being met, will be unsustainable. 

    Moving forward, staying forgiven and getting close. 

    To the one who has had the affair: Now is your time to stand guard over the boundaries of your relationship.

    As with any trauma, finding out about an affair will create massive potential for the trauma to be re-experienced over and over. Let me explain. Every time there is a gap in knowledge in your relationship – an unanswered text, a phone that is off or that goes through to voicemail, something that doesn’t make sense, not knowing where you are, being late home, not being where you said you would be – anything that can be associated with the affair or with the possibility that the affair is still continuing, can recreate the feelings associated with the betrayal. These feelings might include panic, sadness, fear, anger, suspicion, loneliness, loss. This will keep happening until the trust has been restored. This will take time and it won’t be hurried.

    If you’re the one who has had the affair, your job now is to help your partner to feel safe again. To do this, make sure there is 100% accountability for as long as it takes for your partner to know that there is nothing else more to find out. The privacy that was there before the affair is gone, and it will be gone for a while.

    Know that for your partner, he or she he or she doesn’t want to be that person who doesn’t trust, and who is suspicious and paranoid – but that’s what affairs do. They turn trusting, loving, open hearts into suspicious, resentful, broken ones. It would be that way for anyone. How long it stays that way will depend a lot on how you handle things moving forward. Be accountable every minute of every day. Be an open book. Let there be no secrets. Knowing that there is nothing going on is critical to healing the anxiety and trauma that has come with discovering the affair. Looking for information isn’t about wanting to catch you out, but about wanting to know that there is nothing to catch out. 

    For healing to happen, it will be your turn to take responsibility for standing guard over the boundaries of your relationship for a while. Be the one who makes sure there are no gaps, no absences, no missing pieces in the day. And no secrets. If the person you had the affair with contacts you, let your partner know. Be the one who makes things safe again. For the one who has been hurt, there will be a period, sometimes for a year or more, where there will be a constant need to find evidence that the affair isn’t happening. It may become an obsession for a while. Finding out about an affair is traumatic, and the way to find relief from this is by searching for proof that the relationship is safe, that the affair is finished, and that it’s okay to trust again. 

    To the one who has been betrayed …

    Forgive yourself for feeling angry or sad or hateful or for not knowing what you want. Forgive yourself for everything you’re doing to feel okay. Forgive yourself for not knowing and for not asking the questions that were pressing against you when something didn’t feel right. And let go of any shame – for leaving, for staying, for any of the feelings you felt before the affair or during it or afterwards. None of the shame is yours to hold on to.

    Every relationship has a make it or break it point. Some relationships will have many. Forgive yourself if you missed something. This relationship involved two people. If you weren’t giving your partner something he or she needed, it was up to them to tell you so you could put it right. There will have been times that your needs went hungry too. It happens in all relationships from time to time. It’s the intensity and the duration of the unmet need that does the damage. You deserved the chance to know that something wasn’t right. And you deserved the chance to put back whatever was missing. You have that now. If you aren’t able to give your partner what he or she needs moving forward, forgive yourself for that too. Sometimes two great people don’t mean a great relationship. Sometimes it’s not the people who are broken, but the combination of you.

    You will always be someone’s very idea of beautifully and imperfectly perfect. Most likely you have always been that to your partner, but somewhere along the way, life got in the way and things fell apart for a while.

    Right now though, you are going through a trauma. Give yourself plenty of time to forgive, and to start to feel okay again, whether that it is in the relationship or out of it. Be kind to yourself and be patient. You deserve that. You always have.

    And finally …

    Every affair will redefine a relationship. It can’t be any other way. There will be hurt and anger and both of you will feel lonely and lost for a while, but if your relationship is worth fighting for, there will be room for growth and discovery. The heartbreak won’t always feel bigger than you. Some days you’ll hold steady and some days you’ll be okay and some days you’ll wonder how you’ll ever get back up. This is so normal and it’s all okay. You’re grieving for what you thought you had and what you thought you were working towards. You’re grieving for the person you thought you were with and or the relationship you thought you had. Those things are still there, but they’re different to what you thought. That doesn’t mean better or worse, just different. 

    Good people make bad decisions. We do it all the time. We hurt the ones we love the most. We become, for a while, people we never imagined we could be. But the mistakes we make – and we all make them – impress in our core new wisdoms and truths that weren’t there before. An affair is a traumatic time in a relationship, but it doesn’t have to define the relationship. Rather than collecting the broken pieces and scraping them from dustpan to bin, they can be used put the relationship back together in a way that is stronger, more informed, wiser, and with an honesty and a love that is more sustainable.

    466 Comments

    Michelle

    JS,
    I am sorry for what you are going through. My husband of 28 years had a 6 month relationship with a bar scamp where he was a bouncer. He only confessed after I called her. He quit that job, at my demand and we are working on our relationship.

    Five months later he had a total knee replacement and guess who had to take care of him. I told him that I had no empathy for what he was going through after what he put me through. He was shocked and doesn’t understand how I can be so cruel to him.

    You need to take care of yourself. He tried to make himself feel better at your expense and he can’t make you feel better. If you decide to stay in the relationship you both need to work on yourselves before you can work on the relationship. The ache in your soul will never go away, but it does become tolerable.

    Reply
    JS

    I accidentally responded to comments you made under my original post. Hopefully, you will see them.

    Reply
    Michelle

    JS,
    Thank you for the reply. I reach out to others going through the same thing because I was totally caught off guard by the deep aching pain that came with my husbands infidelity. It helps to know that we are not alone and that everything we are feeling is normal.

    My husband and I are having good times together. I have lost 75 pounds and look amazing. I am proud of myself and I enjoy the attention that I am getting with my new looks. He enjoys it too, but then I get depressed because I feel I had to change my figure in order to keep him interested in me. If he didn’t like me middle aged, comfortable and overweight, why should he get to enjoy the new me. UGH!!! You would be surprised to know that he is 6’3″ and weighs 280 pounds! Yet I am the one that went from a size 18 to a size 4 to please him (I am 5’3″ and went from 208 pounds down to 133).

    Don’t worry about what other people think of you for sticking by his side. I think that it takes a very strong woman to stand by a cheating husband to try to improve your relationship. We know that it is a lot easier to walk away then to work on fixing what is broken. Anyone looking down at you for attempting to work things out has no clue what you have been through. Now sticking by a man who continues to cheat time and time again is something totally different.

    As long as he is willing to put in the work, keep at it…

    Reply
    JS

    My husband and I have been together for 25 years. Over the years, he also had issues with anxiety that were difficult but not disabling. Recently, he had a complete mental breakdown and was hospitalized for 12 days. During a visit to the hospital, he confessed that he had slept with other women. According to him, this happened 10 years ago. Two hookups with women he found on Craigslist and two prostitutes. This was during a time period when he had been laid off from his job. He says he doesn’t know why he did it except that he was feeling bad about himself at that time.

    He felt that if he confessed to me that his mental condition would improve because he had been carrying around so much guilt and shame. Of course, that didn’t work. It did work to completely devastate me. I am surprised by how deeply and profoundly I am hurt by this. So, I started researching and have discovered how normal my feelings are.

    My problem in going forward is that he is unwilling to truly discuss this all with me, answer my questions or give me reassurance that he really wants me to stay in a real way. He claims he is too fragile to really address it right now. However, I am hurting right now. It has always bothered him that I put others’ needs ahead of my own and now expects me to do that again.

    I thought we had a good marriage and he insists that we have. For me, the whole foundation of my life and my sense of self is shattered. I do love him and would like to look at this as an opportunity to build a stronger relationship that addresses some of my own needs and desires for our us. However, the longer I am asked to be patient to have a substantive discussion about this, the more emotionally distant I feel. I find myself making plans for a future without him since he won’t discuss where we go from here. While I am worried about leaving him while he is so vulnerable, I am afraid that by the time he is ready to focus on our relationship that it will be too late.

    I feel robbed of the time I could have spent developing a truly trusting relationship with someone who wanted the same with me. Now, whether I stay or go, I will always be alone.

    Meanwhile, I have changed from a level-headed, optimistic, strong and overly trusting woman into a person who can’t eat and has a constant ache in my soul. My whole world seems upside down. I keep putting one foot in front of the other but have no destination.

    Reply
    JS

    Thank you for your comments, Michelle. I am sorry for what you are going through. Reading comments about how people continue to hurt so intensely even with the passage of time is a bit discouraging. I am glad your husband is remorseful and is working hard to make amends. I truly wish the best for you.

    We are trying very hard, both together and separately. It is extremely important to me that he really comes to terms with why he did it. Without that, I will be unsettled every time life throws a curveball and he doesn’t feel good about himself. It is guaranteed that life will do that. I need the assurance that he has the coping skills to weather that.

    I really struggle with the humiliation. While I am still attractive to the other men, middle age takes its toll and does a number on your self-esteem. If I had known about this ten years ago when it happened, I feel I would have had more options – perhaps with someone who valued me and our children and appreciated all the love and support he is offered. Since our children are grown, I also feel a little degraded by my current decision to stay and feel that he and others, (and especially me) will look at me as weak.
    That said, we have been each other’s best friend for 25 years.

    We are both grieving what was since he cheated on himself when he was unfaithful and needs to come to terms with what this means for him as a man, a father, and a partner. I guess I selfishly want him to truly thank me for giving this a chance. I also want him to express that appreciation of me to others.

    I hope his experience of you caring for him after knee surgery opens his eyes about what commitment means. I understand your difficulty as my husband is still healing from his breakdown and facing some painful issues that go back to childhood.

    I notice that you have replied to many posts on this thread and you should know that you are a very caring and supportive person deserving of the same love and support you offer others.

    Reply
    Abby

    I have 2 kids and I am currently expecting my 3rd (5 months pregnant) . I just saw some message on my husbands phone. Not only of one but several women. They ask him to borrow money and in return they pay him with “ass” that’s what the text say. He says its a lie it never went pass the text nothing ever happened. I am so confused and hurt. I dont know what to believe. I am trying to be strong for myself and my baby. Im currently not speaking to him, unless it has to do with the kids and the basic household duties. I cannot see him the same anymore, im a little gross out. If I forgive him, will I ever be intimate with him like before. so many questions. I may be able to forgive but not forget and that might just be torture for me.

    Reply
    Shantell

    I just caught my boyfriend cheating with a coworker. We both work at the same place we both our supervisors I work first shift he works third shift. He was always at her machine. He told me they were childhood friends nothing more. I told him supervisors don’t take breaks with coworkers bye there self. Started going to the tanning bed. Couple days before that he shaved his private area. Why? I asked we wasn’t having sex. He said it was bothering him. Then he cut his hair. He would always wipe my kisses off after we kissed. He said I was crazy he would never do that to me not to worry he was not like that. Well one Saturday morning I came in to work on a couple things. Well he said we had to leave. He said he had to do something bye his self. He didn’t want to ruin the surprise but he was going to get me something for mother’s day. We came home he got in the shower put comfy clothes on. ASked me if he looked alright. Took me and dropped me off back at work. Came back 3 hours later. All sweaty had his shirt off. I could just tell something had just happened. Monday came around and all the operators came up to me and told me what was being said. I told my boyfriend and he said every one was just trying to make me mad. He would never do that. Can’t a boss just be friends with someone without rumors going around. Finally I came in to work without anyone seeing me. And I watched. He was with her at her machine they were flirting and standing really close to each other. Made sure they touched every time they passed. Later I called him out. He admitted it and cried told me he was sorry. He don’t know why he did that. He loves me and the kids. He doesn’t want to lose me. I told him if he wanted to be with me he would stop it. He did he did not talk to her. Stayed away from her. He even told me when she came up to him and said hey stranger do you not know me anymore. He said he told her to go back to her machine and only talk to him if it’s work related. I love him so much I just don’t know how to trust him again. He wiped my kisses off, he lied to me, he used getting me a gift so he could cheat he slept with her in my Jeep. He came and gave me a hug and a kiss right after he cheated. How do I know he won’t do it again? Why did he kiss me right after? Have sex with me the next day? Was he even thinking about me at all? Or what would happen between us? All I picture all the time is him being with her in my vehicle and him fucking her. What else did they do? Did they do stuff at work also? When? WHAT can I do to make sure he loves me? And this won’t happen again? Because to me how and what he did tells me he didn’t care about me one bit. I feel nasty and disgusted with myself because he kissed me right after he cheated like it was nothing to him. Please help me and guide me on what went wrong

    Reply
    Hope

    Mark, what you stated is so very true. You have to ask your heart…do you really want to stay with your spouse! As I wrote before, we had been married 29 years, he was 63 and I was 61. Have a blended family of 3 adult children. He started traveling for work…and eventually was gone almost 5 nights out of the week. He finally came clean (well not quite) saying he had an affair…then he said with 1 woman, only once. Little by little I learned more truths. I knew there was more and spent my life “investigating” and things just didn’t add up. A few months later he told me with tears, there was a second one. Then…a few months after that, after prodding, he came clean at our counselor appt and said there were total of 3. This had been going on for 4 years! He had been on Ashley Madison dating sight. When I thought he was 3 hours away for work…he was actually 1 hour away at a motel or casino motel. He spent lots of money on these women! Steaks suppers, elaborate hot tub suites, took one to a boutique and spent over $300 on her! He would come home and treat me like total crap. My mom was in very ill health so I was traveling back and forth to hospitals to be with her. I’d leave…he would go screw someone! Mom passed away 4 months after he told me! We have kids out of town and out of state. He would never go visit them with me, I would go by myself. As soon as I’d leave….he’d be off screwing one of them! He admitted he took advantage of every opportunity!
    Believe it or not….we are still together and renewing our vows in 2 weeks for our 30th wedding anniversary. He surprised me with a diamond ring a couple weeks ago. He is very remorseful and says it makes him sick to think of what he did and wonders if he was crazy! We are still going to counseling. I still have trust issues and wonder every day how he could do this to me for so long! I always wondered but never thought he would do such a thing because he always had high morals and was in a Management postition at work. But he did!!! We hadn’t had sex for several years due to menopausal things with me. I seriously didn’t think he was able to either! Well…..found out differently and was shocked!!! Afterwards I went to gynecologist and got some estrogen cream and things have been amazing!! We are both on antidepressants now too. Every day we have to work on showing love to each other and not take each other for granted. I also monitor his phone calls, texts, made him delete his gmail account on which they communicated. I watch his every move! We both say we will never ever forget. I still feel lots of anger and hatred towards these women who got everything from him I was wanting for 4 years! I know it takes 2….but for some reason I am more bitter towards them. They were all 10-20 years younger then me….and totally unattractive! One is now with a transgender! One was so ugly he said he would get up and leave early in the morning because he couldn’t stand looking at her when he woke up! Although he was with her the longest…over 3 years and took her to the boutique! The last one scared him because she fell for him and was going to leave her husband. He told all of them he was never leaving his wife! He said it was all about the excitement of sneaking around and getting attention. He said he enjoyed hearing them saying he was hot and good looking! They enjoyed his money! Best of luck to all of you….follow your hearts…..

    Reply
    Mifhelle

    Hope, I don’t know how you do it. During our anniversary last year my husband of 28 years was fooling around. We are working things out, but I am still very hurt. I don’t know that I will ever be ready to celebrate another anniversary, much less renew our vows. When I think of all the holidays we have coming up this fall and winter the thought of celebrating them this year when he celebrated some of them last year with her just turns my stomach. At this point in my life I am not ready to walk away, but I am also not ready to forgive and will never forget.

    Reply
    Valerie

    My husband said he never cheated on me, but my gut feeling says otherwise. Although I only heard hearsay that he was involved with this woman he denies it. He has all the signs of being a caring, loving man after I learned of this affair. He says he never cheated on me and I can’t prove he did. The only proof I have is the woman children came up to me and him while we were out shopping and they said he comes over to their mom house to see her. He denied knowing the children. And as I thought about where the woman lives, he is always in that particular area almost every single day. He says he has a friend who lives out there, but the woman also lives in the exact same area as a matter of fact only two houses from his friend house. This happen six months ago and I still can’t let go, because he refused to admit the truth. I am still very hurt because I have been a very good wife to him. I don’t know if he’s still seeing this woman, but lately like I said he’s been very nice and attentive to me. He makes me feel very special and loved now. But when he doesn’t answer his cell phone I become paranoid and I admit I start accusing him. He says this is destroying our relationship, my accusing him. I wished he would just tell me the truth so that I can move on. I need to know the truth and I see now after six months he’s not going to own up to his mistake.

    Reply
    Michelle

    My husband denied, denied, denied. Called me crazy and told me that I was over reacting. He said that he loved me and wouldn’t risk losing everything we have worked for all these years. Until I called the woman directly and spoke to her myself. Within an hour he left me a voicemail (because I wasn’t answering his calls at that time) that I still have 7 months later saying that “he f@cked up”. If you know where she lives I am sure you can find a phone number for her. Or visit when you know her kids are in school. Ask her directly it is the quickest way to the truth. I wish I wouldn’t have waited so long to do it….

    Reply
    Alycia

    Phone records (call and text), look for burner phones too (glove box, under car seat, etc, closet, dresser, nightstand, office), hire a PI, check emails, track phone or put a tracker under his car. Empower yourself with the truth – no matter how scary. Hard evidence make the denying near impossible – they will try anyway – but facts are facts. It’s how YOU know, even if he lies or denies.

    Reply
    Sherri

    I can relate to others here. My husband had an emotional affair with a married woman at the church we attended. Before I found out about, this had been occurring for many months. I happened to catch them playing footsies under the table. They apologized, promised it would never happen again, and I believed them. It took time to heal. I bought a pretty gift for this woman to show that I forgave her.
    Almost a year later , I was healing quite well. Unexpectedly I found out that the affair continued and I was devistated again. It’s been 2 years since the affair ended, but 1 year since I learned about it. In the beginning, the pain was unbearable, but as time went on it bothered me less.
    The biggest challenge now is that my husband accuses me of not forgiving. I have forgiven, it’s just taking time to trust. From time to time there are triggers that come unexpectedly and the emotions are stirred yet again. I want to heal and move forward, but at times I feel so stuck. Not really sure what to do.

    Reply
    Don B

    I am the husband of the wife that cheated with another married man for three and a half years some 25 years ago. I thought it was behind us into I found a birthday card to him for his birthday this month. Now what?

    Reply
    Edna A

    I just learned from my hardship and receiving my husband back. That which is broken is lost! The wine that spilled is gone. Everything must be started new. Who are you? We live we grow we change. NOW who are you because you are not the person I married. Am I willing to get to know the REAL you and do you want me and do I want you? If so then let’s start from scratch. The past is the PAST!

    Reply
    Michelle

    Sorry Edna, I don’t agree. But I guess that is part of your response. If I knew in the beginning that this man I married could not be trusted to love and honor our commitment to each other, then I don’t think I would have married him. The past has made me realize that the future will be forever changed. I can’t go back and undo the damage that was done. I need to decide whether I can live with the man I married, not the one I thought I did. He was all I needed, but I wasn’t enough for him. I am trying harder to keep us from growing apart again. But what happens if I become sick, or bedridden. I thought that our love would keep us by each others side. If he can’t do that when I am healthy and able-bodied, what will keep him with me when I am not?

    Reply
    Tina

    My husband of 25 years has been living overseas for a few years while I stayed home with our 5 children it’s been really hard at times and we did grow apart but I kept thinking when he comes home we will work it out, but last September I found out he’d been seeing a women who had a daughter since January he was undecided who he wanted ,but I was so distraught that I fought so hard to get him back I lost all self respect because I kept thinking he should be fighting for me! I kept asking what did I do wrong? Anyway he came home at Christmas saying he broke up with her because he wanted to be with me that I was and always will be the love of his life! , so over the next few months he told me lots about 5be affair I found out it was quite serious they nearly bought a house together, she thinks we were divorcing and he kept telling her it was nearly finalised! In March this year we went to Hawaii for our 25th anniversary and I happen to see his phone where I found sexting from the previous few months with another women that works at his firms Tokyo office, they had been having an affair for the last 3 years whenever he was in Tokyo , I also found out that the other women broke up with him after Christmas when he was here with me, he’d actually told her he came out to finish the divorce but she finished it with him, I was able to contact her and she has sent me 3 months of messages from him asking her to take him back! I am so heart broken, he is very remorseful and seeing a psychologist he says he couldn’t handle the rejection from her and was looking for a reaction or closure he has no idea why he lied to both of us as it was bound to come out, we are trying to work things out but it is so hard, I’m struggling every single day thinking what did I do to deserve this and why wasn’t I good enough for him? I love him and really want to forgive and trust again, he has another year before he comes home, I know definitely he has no contact with one women and he says he has none with the girl in Tokyo but I don’t know how to trust what he’s saying anymore, he’s lied so much and I don’t understand how he could do this to someone he claims to love, I just want to move past this hurt and pain I’m just slipping in and out of a deep depression,

    Reply
    Michelle

    Tina,
    I feel so bad for the position he put you in. Unfortunately, you will probably never be able to trust him again while he is still traveling and away from home so much. My husband cheated at his part time job and a large part of our agreement in working things out was that he quit that job. I would never be able to trust him working there again. He still complains about the loss of income from that job, but I remind him that our relationship is worth so much more than the money he made there.

    Reply
    Alycia

    Hi Tina,
    I’m so sorry to hear your story. I hate to say this, but I don’t think you will never trust him again. He got caught on one affair and lied, lied, lied. He is having (present tense on purpose) multiple affairs and real estate shopping with his whores. How many others are there? Divorce him. Get child support. Get yourself to therapy.
    We are 3 years post-affair. He cheated with a coworker 15 years younger for 6 weeks. I caught him and he crumbled and cut it off with her twice in 24 hours (I believe he really ended it over these 2 phone conversations). I have PI info to back this up. But that’s what it takes. I have to have him checked by a PI from time to time just to keep my sanity. He was remorseful, sobbed, went to therapy for a year (together and separately), etc. After 6 months, the therapist ruled he was a good guy who really screwed up and she thought he was one of the minority who could really reinvest in us. After all this time and endorsements, I still feel unsafe, unloved, empty, depressed and guarded. Even with him working at our relationship. I go through the motions thinking that time will heal it. We completely get each other and have such a great together. Lately, I don’t know why I’m bothering. Any time I start to relax, I have to protect myself and refortify. I’m married to my best friend, but I’ll never actually be happy again…. not with him or anyone. He shattered my trust and I don’t think it will ever be repaired… even though I don’t think he is cheating again. IF he was or if I even suspected it, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror for staying – heck, I barely can now.
    Good luck and I hope you find peace.

    Reply
    Michelle

    Alycia,
    You hit my feelings right on the money. I am only 7 months out and am still very hurt and angry. He can’t understand why I am letting it bother me so much. He was shocked and hurt when I tried to tell him that it will never be the same between us. I don’t know why these cheaters think that we should be able to “get over it” and “move on”. He lied to me for 6 months. He saw me alone, crying, hurt, enraged and yet he continued to lie. How do you do that to someone that you love and how am I supposed to live with the fact that he could be that hurtful to me, the one he is supposed to love and protect. He is working at the relationship and I truly think that he is remorseful. Now I question the 28 years that I trusted him. He says it was only once, but how do I believe him now. I think I still love him, but I also hate him!

    Reply
    Pam

    I feel the same way we are almost 25 years in and he wants just to just be happy again. I am happy about that but I can’t figure out how to move on without the wall I built

    Reply
    Lindsey

    Michelle the first thing I want to say is that I’m very sorry that this happened to you. I have never been cheated on it must be so devastating. I have however been the cheater. I am replying to your message because you made the statement “these cheaters”. Being on the other side is difficult as well. I have known many good people that have made the mistake. I myself was in an abusive relationship for 16 years, actually 18 years now, and know full well why I made that mistake that I made. I ended it, I came forward ready to take any consequences as one would definitely be scared coming to an abusive mate saying “hey guess what I did”, and I even confessed to my church and endured severe consequences there. I sent messages to dozens of people apologizing for my actions, and for the people that didn’t receive a message I went to them face-to-face and sat in front of them. I endured extreme consequences that I can’t even fully give in detail. So when you say that you don’t understand why “these cheaters” expect you to get over it… Well I suppose I can understand that but I am one of those “cheaters” that do expect my husband to – maybe not necessarily “get over it” but he needs to understand that he damaged my trust and my sense of security for years as well, many more years then he had to and I did not get the benefit of having someone confess, come forward, and humbly take their consequences. Also, when someone says that they will forgive their mate they really need to understand what that entails. Yes trust is gone but how you act or react is always a choice and to constantly constantly show suspicion and mistrust is very discouraging and damaging to the other person as well, especially if they are truly sorry. Of course I am replying to your message out of intense emotion because I am fed up with dealing with an abuser and really that’s what my situation is about. I would love to reassure him, I would love to just let him check on my text messages, I would love to tell him about every minute of my day but he has never been that person for me, not from the first week of our marriage. I tell you that sometimes these cheaters are really good people that got the short end of the stick every time. my husband withheld communication affection attention approval praise sex all of the above and when I would beg for his attention he would tell me that it wasn’t going to happen and that I should go get a hobby and when I would make sexual advances he would push me away. To this day he sleeps in the living room on the floor. 8 years and I’ve been sleeping alone in my bed. But when I came forward about my affair he told me that if I left he was going to quit his job and not give me alimony or child support. that on top of the fact that I don’t have any family here, I don’t have a job, I don’t have a car, nowhere to go. I have to admit that I’m very angry, and just like how you refer to cheaters as “these cheaters” sometimes I look at the victim in situations like this and I think to myself, hmm, I wonder if they are truly victims or if they were cheated on because they were villainous. Nevertheless there is no excuse for cheating and I do feel sorry for everyone that is truly victimized in these situations, whether they were the one that was cheated on or the one that made a very sad mistake at the hands of a monster.

    Reply
    Sue

    Lindsey, I just want to say thank you. I have been in the same situation you are in–emotionally abusive relationship and I cheated on him. Took me a long time to realize why I did it honestly. Reading these responses to the article and seeing all the negativity about “cheaters”. I cant blame them but there is always more to the story and you reminded me of that. Not many will share this side of it, including me. Thank you again for being so strong.

    Reply
    Glenda R

    I am near tears I just recently found out my husband had an affair for 4 months and I found out by finding sexual messages on his phone. We had been together close 5 years and we have no children. We did fight allot but according to him his insecurities about us got to him and he cheated with a girl he played video games online that he knew from his past. What hurts the most is when I asked if it meant anything to him he said a little. I’m thinking why did this happen to me. I had to move back in with my parents and I’m still adjusting to the breakup. I’m still missing him and want to go back but he said even if we did that he knows ill never trust him which is true. He was distant for the past month and i felt lonely and depressed. It was nice to read someone else comment so i know I’m not alone and i hope you will get better.

    Reply
    Tina

    Thankyou for your response, I’m sorry your not happy , I struggle every day trying to move past the hurt and pain of it all, it’s the most heartbreaking finding out the person you love has betrayed you and I ask myself everyday why? And why I wasn’t enough! it has been 10 months now since I found out about the first affair and 4 since I found out about the other one, we have reconciled and really do want it to work but I still do ask myself every day if I’m doing the right thing, there has been many lies that still seem to be coming out he is working with a psychologist on how to stop this I think he has been so used to protecting himself it’s a habit, I’m giving him one last chance to prove himself , he has done everything I’ve asked to try and build trust again , I know it’s going to take time , I hope things work out though as I do love him still! I hope things get better girvyou and your husband!

    Reply
    Darlene J

    I so Identify with everything you said. My husband had affairs it was many years ago and I really struggled to put that mostly behind us. We had counseling but it was terrible. The counselor wanted to find out what I was not doing that caused the affair. We did get past. I never felt total trust again but I thought I mostly trusted him.
    But when his parents passed he started drinking, hanging out late, hiding his phone, lying about where he was, he staying out all night. He says he was not having an affair but that is hard to just believe.
    We have been married for 33 years. Most people would say what a wonderful person he is. He is. But he is also the person who put me through all of the pain again. Even if he was not cheating. He knew what it was doing to me. I told him and he couldn’t or wouldn’t stop. Most people see me as an incredibly strong person. I just feel weak about my marriage. Like no matter how he hurts me I just stay. He can also be really wonderful, helpful, kind,… I wonder if I should trust him. If I can trust him. If I will ever feel safe and truly loved.

    Reply
    Doug

    I found this website after searching for advise concerning infidelity. My spouse had an affair while I was deployed overseas for a year. She confessed of the affair and has avoided talking about it. I am not healed and years later I still awaken at night. I have lost all trust in our marriage and feel a true emotional drain in our relationship. This affair occurred 20 years ago and I am not over it yet. I do not know if she is still in an emotional affair with him or not. She has not confided in me concerning the affair. I am lost in grief for the loss of our marriage.

    Reply
    Marc

    I am so sorry to hear this. You deserve happiness and maybe thats without your wife. Think hard about your own happiness. You are worth it.

    Reply
    Ada M

    My husband, a very religious guy, of three decades had an emotional online affair for 3 now months with his ex- HS gf who is now based in the US. I fully supported his attendance to their HS reunion sometime last year. Thus when I discovered the affair I was so hurt. Initially, I already noticed this woman’s overtures with my husband through FB chat. And I warned my husband about it. He said it was just friendly texting of reconnected friends. And I believed him. I discovered their online relationship when he inadvertently left his mobile phone for charging in one of our rooms. I have been noticing his changed ways for the past months but since am busy with work, I just let it pass. I also trust him a lot. When I discovered the affair, I was so angry and I confiscated his mobile phone and called up the woman pretending it was him. He also has batchmates who were aware of the supposed relationship and fully supported the affair. Even his own brother who is a HS batchmate knew of the affair.
    I went ballistic.
    I called up the woman and her voice trembled and apparently she was stunned. I called up his friends. I also called up his brother. They were all shocked to know that I already knew. I do not like to go into details of what I did to all of them or what I told them, or even what I did to my husband, as punishment.
    My husband accepted his fault, fully repentant for creating another account upon the insistence of the woman who seems to be psychotic and he pitied her, promised never ever to do it again, and is willing to receive punishment for his wrongdoing. I called up the other woman who was so shocked to learn it was me. I told her – according to my husband you are hallucinating if you think he is yours bec you have had 6 husbands and you have 2 children out of wedlock; according to my husband you are just a pastime thing, etc. etc. In other words, I told her exactly what would hurt her (but all these info really were from my husband).
    To cut the story short – the affair ended. My husband now is back to his normal self. We have also talked about what happened, what went wrong, how to make our relationship better, etc. Now, our mobile phones, email accounts, like before, are made transparent to the both of us. I am not sure if I was heartless or if I did the right thing but at that time, I thought that was right. I heard the other woman attempted suicide. Well, in Romans, it is said, “For the wages of sin is death…”

    Reply
    Petr Anthony

    This is a hard one. I agree that if you plan to stay with a cheater don’t try to find any information. However, in my case I needed it in my state in order to file for a divorce and come out of the relationship. You can’t just say I think courts want proof or you end up spending a lot of time and money to fight it out! Finding out was hard, but I was relieved that I wasn’t crazy and it’s making my divorce go a lot smoother. She would never confess; therefore, I did the best thing for me…find out, no doubt, move on!!!contact cyberhackmaniac50 gmail com..he’s a professional and will surely help you out.

    Reply
    Demetrio

    I was the one that had an affair and I must say this article brings to light a lot of key things as how to deal with the affair from both sides. We have been married for 24 years. Throughout the majority of our marriage I was always open with her about everything. My feelings, my fears, my goals in life. I always was encouraging to her. Always very supportive. Always did my part(or at least the best I could to on my part, and i know I am not perfect) to keep the lines of communication open and just wanted a honest and straightforward partner that would be the same with me. I became and was very openly vulnerable with her as I trusted her with all my heart. Over that period of time I experienced a lot of closed off feelings from her. And even at the mention of the word “change” she would shut down even more. There was a lot of deliberate lying and deciet to hide her financial infidelities from me. When I would discuss these matters with her she took it personally and didnt know how to approach them or come to some sort of resolution. She always avoided conflict or dealing with the problems. When these problems occurred I always approached them with the mindset(including the words I used) that we could fix things together. It was never blame and never was “I have to fix your screw up again”(this happened more times than i can count over almost the first 20 years of our marriage/ I always recommitted to working through things and trying to makes things work. And never with a feeling of caution she would do it again. The main thing is she never approached me about any of it. Never owned up to any of it or ever gave me a feeling of she was truly remorseful for any of it. Fast forward to now… Its been the last two years that I got to know the woman I ended up having an emotional affair with. She was there for me in a lot of ways that my wife wasnt. We would argue and get things resolved at the drop of a hat. She listened to me and I her. Unfortunately the feelings ran real deep with her. She and I even talked about a future together. It was almost to be. Then I realized something… I had to focus on what was important and what my marriage was worth. Three children, a house we bought(after struggling for most of our marriage to be able to afford it), the long and sometimes painful emotional investment we both made to the relationship, I decided that it was more important to try and fix what was broken. It wasnt an easy choice but I felt it was the right thing to do. But….

    This is where the article really hit me…it takes time for some to heal from has been done(I have to let her do that). It takes time to rebuild that trust and commitment. BUT it takes both of us to do that or else it wont work..I made the commitment and she does have to make that commitment as well. Ive been very open and transparent about everything. Even to the point, like the article states, that it might hurt. And she needs to understand what Ive been through. We have to do it together. It has to be a 50/50 partnership for it to succeed. Im not trying to be resistant to working on it since I was the one that took the step to commit before she finally did. But I do not want to find myself at the same point of vulnerability that I was at before. She has to show the same willingness to do so. At least thats how I feel about it. Just my input.

    Reply
    Anonymous

    Ladies when your husband has an affair I do not think it should be his priviledge as to what questions he answers. My husband told me every detail of what he did with the 7 women he had sex with. He believed that unless he told the whole truth and left no detail out, we would not be able to get over it. I know I would have went off my head imagining stuff that didn’t happened. I know that until the day he dies he will spend the rest of his life making it up to me. My husband went with these women for sex, there was no emotional attachment, he didn’t care about any of them. As I said previously he has to live with the fact that his 3 children know what he did and that the respect for him at present is gone. He said to me if he has read these forums years ago he would never have had affairs as you don’t realise the hurt you cause. The first one is the hardest and after that, you think your wife will never find out, I am a bad person but it is only for sex. My husband describes sex outside marriage like kicking a coke can round the street. Then why did he do it? He worked in places where he was senior management and it was offered on a plate. He was weak, selfish and immature. But I know unlike other husbands that he is full of remorse, he is filled with guilt and hatred for what he has done. I know that he has always adored me but he was curious as to what it would be like to have sex with someone else as we were virgins when we first met. we went to counselling but I have now stopped. I realised I was looking for a big answer as to why he had sex with these women that was not there. The answer as I said earlier is that men are weak and selfish, they don’t think of the repercussions of their actions. I know women have affairs also but I think most women think how it would affect their children, therefore don’t. There were times I was unhappy in my marriage but I knew that sex with strangers was not going to make me happy. I am 4 months on from D Day, we are still hysterically bonding, the sex is magical, we cannot wait to go to bed at night. any time the house is empty we have sex and I have experienced multiple orgasms that I never had. So there has been a positive, but I look at him every day and grieve for what I had and will never have again. Ladies it does get better, the pain will get less. Keep going, you are not the blame for what your husband did.

    Reply
    Michelle

    Anonymous,
    My husband and I are almost 4 months from D Day. I still hurt and think of the other woman constantly. However, I do believe that my husband is truly sorry and he is trying very hard to prove his love for me. As with you and your husband, our sex life is on a high that we never had before. We are experimenting, role playing, and enjoying each other as much as possible. However, just last night I had a very dark thought. How long will this new sexuality last between us before he gets bored again? We are reaching middle age and our son will be returning home from college soon so I don’t how much longer this sexual bonding will last. Will he then go looking outside of our relationship again? He says it will never happen again, but I will never have that level of trust again.

    Reply
    betty

    Hi All,
    Wow!! Every single comment I read could easily been written by me. In early October 2017 I discovered that my husband of 24 years was having an affair. I had suspected he was being unfaithful for a long time and confronted him several times. Each time I was told that I was crazy, out of my mind!!! The man could not look me in the eye. Anyway… He mistakenly left his phone on the stairs in our house and at that very moment my life as I knew it changed. The content on the phone was overwhelming to say the least. We are 5 months into a post affair life which includes a recent start to marriage counseling … I am faced with a husband who is overly concerned with his well being and has all kinds of boundaries to keep us from being completely honest and transparent with each other. His therapist has promoted the notion that he doesn’t have to answer any question he is uncomfortable with or engage in dialogue that makes him uncomfortable. The world that I’m living in is one in which I have worked incredibly hard to accept that he had an affair and ” fell in love ” and yet he’s the one who is distant, judgmental, and harsh. I am very close to the point of no return in this horrific time in my life . I feel like I am climbing Mt Everest every day and never getting closer to the first base camp. Any feedback would be appreciated.

    Reply
    Michelle

    Betty,
    I am sorry that you are going through such a horrible time in your life. You don’t realize the depth of this sort of pain unless you live it yourself. I may be wrong, but it sounds like some of these cheaters become angry at us for their affairs. During the affair my husband was so cruel to me that I couldn’t stand it. I think that it was his way of trying to convince himself that what he was doing wasn’t so wrong. God forbid that we make THEM feel uncomfortable by wanting to talk about their decisions that brought us to this point. My husband calls it a mistake and I call it a decision. I would recommend that you seek individualized counseling to help you deal with the anger and pain that you feel. Marriage counseling works on the relationship, but first you need to work out the anger and resentment. It also sounds like he could use some counseling to see what lead him to being such a jerk!

    Reply
    Mark

    Michelle – yes, the “mistake” line is trotted out by all unfaithful spouses 🙂 A mistake is when you try to do something right and inadvertently get it wrong. There is nothing “right” about an affair. An affair (especially one that takes place over a number of months), as you said, is a decision (or more accurately a series of calculated decisions). My wife kept talking about how it had to be looked at “in the context of the time”. The “context of the time” is basically a period when she maximised my shortcomings in the marriage, minimised her shortcomings, focussed on her sense of entitlement and then executed a selfish protracted lapse of judgement. Lapse of judgement is the most I’m willing to concede. This all allowed her to shelve or downplay her conscience and morals and compartmentalise the whole thing.

    Betty – you face an incredible struggle. I’m 10 months past D-day and I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, my wife has never blamed me for her affair, has admitted it was her selfish decision, has been completely open and transparent, is very remorseful, and has vowed to do whatever to help me recover. Yes, it is incredibly hard to accept that your spouse was intimate with someone else (doubly so for me, as both my wife and I were virgins when we met). Your husband has the wrong type of therapist. You will never be able to recover if he is not encouraged to be completely open and honest about *everything*.

    Reply
    Louie

    Get a new counselor. Hubbies last one said he didnt have to tell me the truth.
    His new counselor told him i have the right to be angry and to ask any question, anytime and get an honest, transparent answer.
    Still struggling with the drip, drip of truth and he lies and says i told you that because thats what you wanted to hear. Mind games.

    Reply
    Tina

    Hi Betty, my husbands therapist is telling him the same thing and it’s like everything she says is gospel he’s constantly saying ‘ my therapist says I shouldn’t need to do anything I’m not comfortable with’and it’s getting me very angry, I’d be interested o know how your going now with it all?

    Reply
    Trisha

    My husband and I have been married for 28 years. We were married for 3 months when I discovered he spent a weekend with a woman from his past because she wanted to see Chicago and he felt it was okay to show her around. He said they stayed in the same hotel room but separate beds. I know I was stupid to “believe” him but I was pregnant at the time and didn’t want to divorce. He insists to this day that his original story is true. He has had several female friends since that he texts and calls from the office just to “talk”, again insisting they are just friends. I never found that he has spent money or charged extra things to the credit card that would indicate anything else. We own a company together that we started 26 years ago. Many of these women start as customers and become “friends”. He is a very friendly and funny person, one that people just feel comfortable with. Eight years ago I discovered that he was calling a woman named Bonnie on a daily basis. I confronted him and then her and told them both that I am uncomfortable with their friendship because she is a customer and our private life shouldn’t be shared. He insisted that it’s innocent. I thought the conversations stopped but 2 years later I discovered he was still talking to her. I called her one time, but she didn’t answer so I left my message on her answering machine. I never called her back, but the police followed up and asked me if I intend to talk to her again, I said no, and they said she filed a harrassment complaint. She bought my husband a burner phone and they continued to talk for another two years. I discovered the phone when I found a picture of his junk on his cell phone that he forwarded to this burner phone, though it was not sent to HER, it was to another woman. And he was also talking regularly to a flight attendant, a third woman! I was able to retrieve phone records and he was texting back and forth with this flight attendant 20 to 30 times a day!! We went on a cruise with his mom and sister, and on the way to the airport at 3:30 in the morning he had to run into the office for a second. Later I found out he was texting her to say he was leaving. When we got back, she sent him a picture of US she had snagged off facebook, apparently he neglected to tell her I was going with them on this cruise. He insists these women are just friends and that there was never anything physical. But it was something that he didn’t want me to know about because he was very careful to keep this phone in his office or his truck. His lies and betrayals are something that I have lived with since the beginning and I have been so stupid to believe his promises and cover-ups. He is very narcissistic, attention hungry and his kids think the world of him. We have 3 children, our youngest is in her last year in college and getting a 3.95 GPA, if I were to leave him now she would give up on school and I don’t want that to happen. We own this business together and if I were to leave him I would lose my job. We built our home in the country and the office building is on our property, and all of our employees report to the office at the beginning of the day, so if we were to break up I would lose my house. I know marriage is not just about me, and I feel that if I were to choose to leave I would be selfish. Many people, my children included, view us as having a strong happy marriage. But I am extremely unhappy with my marriage, though I feel I love him, I’m not in love with him. It’s been two years since I discovered the three skanks and I still cannot get past the hurt. Even though I now have control over all of his social media accounts and his phone is not locked, I still feel he is hiding something because he appears to be living honestly now and says he is being “good”. Bonnie did try to contact him around Christmas but I intercepted the text only because it came in when he was sleeping. I talked to her pretending to be him and she didn’t buy it, asking me to give the hubby his phone. She said she knows that “I left him a long time ago” and “they are best friends” and that I “shouldn’t be talking to her since she has an order of protection”. Sorry Bons, but filing a complaint is not the same thing as an OP. She is a fatal attraction that also believes she can do whatever she wants. She inherited money from her dead mother, and recently moved from the area to Panama City Beach Florida (and Bonnie is her real name, so look her up, she is a skank). After the conversation I deleted it from his phone and then blocked her phone number, only after I screen shot everything and saved it on a computer hard drive. I don’t think I would have found out about it if he wasn’t sleeping because I don’t believe he will ever be honest with me. And I don’t know if she got another phone number that she is able to talk to him with. He gets mad whenever I want to talk to him about our situation, telling me he’s been a good boy for two years. His answers to most of my questions are “I don’t remember” and “I don’t know”. He has been in to a counselor, thinking he would be “fixed” and takes responsibility for everything, at least the things I know about, but I don’t think I will ever be reassured that he will ever be truthful. Most recently, a long time customer called his cell phone and he got up from the room to go into another room. I knew it was a woman because I could hear her voice. When I asked him who it was, he told me her husband’s name. I said I knew it was her, and his answer was that it came up as her husband name. Writing this I realize I have been a fool. If I didn’t have the business or a daughter in college I would have left. My family lives three states away and his live 5 states away and in Florida. I have no where to go, no money of my own and am not sure what to do. He insists none of these women have been a physical relationship, but I can’t believe anything he tells me. I keep telling him that the next time this happens I will leave, but I said that about Bonnie the second time I found out about her. I’m such a fool. I like my life the way it is, just not my marriage. I’m not ready to give everything up but I don’t know if I can ever love him again.

    Reply
    Michelle

    I would like to pose a question to the unfaithful partners who are reading this. Did you even think about what you were doing to your partners? Did the pain and suffering they were going to be put through ever once cross your mind? If you truly loved them, how could you disrespect them so much that you could destroy their lives? The one person in the world that was supposed to be there for me hurt me more than I have ever been hurt.

    Reply
    Anonymous

    Michelle, these men don’t think about the consequences as they think they will never be found out. My husband said when he got out of his job in 2011 that he would never do it again and that he would take it to the grave. The reason he had sex would these women was that he loved sex and that I had 3 children , worked fulltime and was too tired. Now he has to live with it and his children all know. I invested my life in my children and I am reaping the benefits now. They are wonderful and I have a wonderful open relationship with them.

    Reply
    Hope

    My husband also said he didn’t think I’d ever find out. Although guilt got to him after 4 years of being on Ashley Madison dating sight, cheating with 3 women (tramps) and spending lots of money on them! He said he told all of them up front he had no intentions of leaving his marriage. The last one got serious with him and he decided to come clean with me. I think she probably threatened to tell me herself. When he told me, I made him also call all 3 of our adult kids andvtell them too, while I was sitting there! That was punishment in itself for him. We are still going to counseling. Things have gotten much better. Kids see a different view of him now…and they used to have him way up on a totem pole. I still can’t believe this happened! 30 years of marriage…he was 63 when he told me. (10 months ago). Successful General Manager. He also had to tell his 2 bosses per the counselor to own up to his actions, since he traveled all the time. He’s very lucky he has a good relationship with them and got to keep his job! Now he is only permitted to travel 2 times a week and I can go along with him if I want. It’s very had to ever believe anything he says since I did for 4 yrs and it was all a lie. I thought he was out of state and he was an hour away! He would come home and treat me horribly!!

    Reply
    Hope

    I also should add, after going thru menopause, sex became very painful for me. The last few times (several years back) he would say it wasn’t that good when we were done. So I quit letting him have it. I thought he was having troubles himself and couldn’t do it anymore. Wow, was I wrong! I guess guys do go crazy if they don’t get sex! Little did I know! I have gone to a gynecologist and got Estrace, an estrogen cream which I highly suggest for every post menopausal woman! It does wonders! If I would have only known. But he says he also like the excitement of sneaking around and the attention he got…he says it wasn’t all about sex.

    Reply
    Michelle

    Over our 28 years our sex life has never been bad, but according to him it wasn’t enough. We both worked multiple jobs and raised 2 kids. I was sexually abused by my father (my husband knew this) so sex has always been uncomfortable for me. I really needed to be able to count on my husband to be faithful and devoted to me, as my self esteem has always been terrible. When he started talking to this other woman I weighed 208 pounds (I was comfortable in my marriage and didn’t worry too much about my looks.) I have lost 65 pounds and have gone from a size 18 to a 6. We are having sex just about every other day, but I think that I am just using that right now to keep him happy and faithful (I am enjoying it more than I ever have). We have been experimenting with lotions and toys that help as I am also dealing with menopause and he has issues with ED caused by his blood pressure meds. I guess that we are making it work, slowly. I just can’t get over the way he made me feel. With all that we have been through over all the years, how could he care about me so little. One of the things that he would say to me when I was sure he was fooling around was “do you think I would risk all that we have”. So he knew the consequences, but just didn’t care? Worst is that he was fooling around in the bar where our son worked with him and he saw it all. That is how I found the evidence I needed to confirm my thoughts. Hope, maybe we can go out on your pontoon boat this summer….

    Reply
    Anonymous

    4 months ago my husband of 25 years confessed after something that was said to my son at a party that his father was notorious with woman that he had cheated. I had absolutely no idea. He had 2 affairs in 1998 and 1999, and then had one off sexual encounters with 4 others from 2006- 2007, then 2010 and then 2 prostitutes abroad in 2011. I am absolutely devastated. These happened through work, my husband is a tee totaller, stone cold sober. He said they meant nothing, he cared about none of them and all he wanted was sex. I have spoken calmly to 3 of them, and i know that he has given me every detail of what he had done with each one of them, how it happened and all stories tally. I know he has told the truth and the reason he says he has done that is so that we can get over it. He says he is ashamed and sorry, that he always loved me and does not know why he did it. What i am struggling with is, if you absolutely adore your partner , how could you do that? How can you be happily married and do that? Over the last seven years he has stopped and says he will never do it again but i am so hurt and the trust is gone.

    Reply
    Michelle

    Those are my exact thoughts! After 28 years together how could you love me so little that you would hurt me so deeply? I don’t know that I can make myself love him again. Was I even a thought when he was with her?

    Reply
    Hope

    I asked him the same exact thing….multiple times. If he loved me how could he do this to me. He says he never stopped loving me. He told all of them right up front he still loved his wife and was not going to leave her….but I am pretty sure the last one thought she could change that. He spent tons of money on them…Best rooms they had in motels…king jacuzzie suites. Steak suppers. Even took one to a boutique and told them to make her look pretty (she was a real tramp) and spent over $300 on clothes, boots, makeup and hair….and possibly more but that’s what he remembers. He said it didn’t help. (Lol). He’s never done that for me! He was making bunches of money at work and it went to his head. He could have spent that on us! He did buy me a pontoon….but still. I asked him if he thought of me at all when he was with them. He really couldn’t say. If I would call him….he would tell them it’s me calling and step outside. I would feel horrible if I was one of them! I thought he was out of state and he’d only be an hour from home. Or….everytime I was out of town to one of the kids or to my Moms (she was fighting death in the hospital 3 or 5 hours away, depending which hospital she was in….he made plans to be with them at a motel. I thought he was home or at work. He admitted he took advantage of every opportunity. This went on for 4 years….maybe longer. And I didn’t know. He treated me horrible when he would come home….all tired out. I thought it was just him….he was known to be an a$$. He never kissed me good bye although I tried. He said he knew he was kissing others…that’s why. He found it exciting that I didn’t know….and he was getting by with it. He said it wasn’t so much about the sex but the excitement of sneaking around. The counselor asked him….and he said he’s never thought of it…but yes….he was a sex addict and also had a gambling addiction. He would meet some of them at casinos for a night fling. He has told me everything and is totally remorseful and ashamed. He knows….if this happens again….no excuses…he’s out! I can’t live thru another time. I almost didn’t this time. Thank God for counseling! I did get the last one fired from her job tho (ha ha). She was General Manager of a motel and she met him there for the night after work after they hid her car! And….she is now separated from her husband but still stalks us!

    Reply
    Michelle

    I told my husband about our conversation last night. He said that he doesn’t know what made him keep going with the affair and that he couldn’t remember what he was thinking at the time. He has a giant ego and I think that it was a mid life thing. We had a good day together yesterday, but I never really stop thinking about it. Every time he touches me, or kisses me, I think of the affair. I don’t feel like I love him anymore, but can’t even begin to think of splitting our lives 50/50 after 28 years. How to even go about it is intimidating, so that’s why I stay (for now).

    Reply
    Teresa

    I’m 25 years old married for 5 years with my husband. We have 2 wonderful children together. I found out my husband cheated on me for 6 or so months with a 16 year old. I guess what hurts the most of all this is that I had all the signs in my face and didn’t or couldn’t see them. He gave her happiness and love while he made me feel like the worst person in the world. He told her every single dream we were trying to accomplish. He accused me all the time of cheating while he was the one to blame. He gave her a better birthday present then me. He always said we had to make our relationship better. But he was showing her and giving her what belonged to our marriage. I feel like I wasn’t good enough for him because he had to go find someone waay younger than me. He doesn’t talk to her anymore and swears it’s done and over with her. I’m trying to forgive him and let things go but I just feel like I’m the one that’s trying to glue things together like if I was the one who had the affair. I try to talk to him about it and he gets mad at me and tells me to let it go. How do I let go of something that is destroying my self-esteem, my heart, and a part of who I am?

    Reply
    Hope

    Perfect article and advice in all ways. For both the betrayer and the betrayed. After married for 29 years, he is 64, I’m 62…my husband came clean to me 9 months ago. Little by little I learned more truths. About 6 weeks ago….I finally got all the truth (I think). We have been going to a counselor. He was even lying to her. I kept finding things that didn’t make sense. Finally….he admitted…not just one woman, it was 3. In a 4 year period. He had been on Ashely Madison dating sight. I was in shock, hurt, devastated…and still am but getting easier. We have fallen in love again. He has admitted to the counselor he was/is addicted to sex and gambling. He treated me horriblely and was gone 5 nights out of the week. I suspected and wondered but never thought he would do this since he always had such high morals and is a successful general manager. I loved him too much to throw him out. He says he told every one he was not leaving his marriage and he loved his wife. The last woman fell for him…and was going to leave her husband (which she has!) and he knew he had to come clean. We plan on renewing our wedding vows this summer for our 30th wedding anniversary. I have days where I’m still sick as the day I found out…and days where I feel like it never happened. He is very remorseful, sick about what he did, dislikes his actions, and doing everything the counselor and I have asked him to do. That consists of getting STD tested (clean which surprised both of us), telling his bosses (so now he doesn’t travel near as much and I can go with him if I wish) showing me his contact list (which we have deleted a lot,) telling me all passwords, just to name a few. I pray he does not relapse! He says he never ever will.

    Reply
    Michelle

    Hope, I am in the same boat. My husband of 28 years had an affair at the bar where he worked as a bouncer. I confronted him for 4 months and he continued to lie to my face. He only admitted it after I called his girl friend. He was living an alternate life at the bar and told everyone that he has been single for 4 years. He has, at my request, quit bouncing and is going to therapy as am I. I am still very hurt and have my good and bad days. He gets upset with me that I haven’t been able to “get over it” as fast as he would like. He keeps turning himself into the victim as it is tearing him up inside to see me hurting. UGH. I love him in my head, but not in my heart. I don’t know what to do! Only thing keeping me from hurting myself is that during the affair we became grandparents to twins that mean the world to me.

    Reply
    Hope

    Michelle…I beg you not to hurt yourself over this. Think of your grandbabies! Congratulations….a sign that life goes on! I think it’s normal for them to think we can just “get over it!” My husband is finally starting to face reality after the counselor told him he’s snuffing out his thoughts and feelings and he has to let them out or else after I’m all healed…it’s going to come up and hit him in the face. Now he is telling me whenever he has been thinking. He just got a text from one of them a few days ago again! Only saying “Hi” but that’s how she always started the conversation. She is the one that fell from him! He totally ignored it, deleted it, and told me! We are not blocking her yet….we want to see if she continues. If she does…I will be responding to her to leave him alone because we are happy and in love! It’s been 10 months now since he confessed. I still think about it every day. Our relationship has grown so much from this…just wish it didn’t happen. Stay on guard with your husband….check his every where about!! You have to, to regain trust! And…if he isn’t hiding anything…he should let you. Best of luck….it sucks, I know. Do not hurt yourself! You will be hurting others that truly love you!

    Reply
    Will

    My wife had and affaire after 4 years of marriage, honestly I have accepted as my fault because for three years of are marriage I was not their emotionally enough for her as I should of been. Not because I didn’t love her or anything but because I became lazy and was just being ignorant and playing video games while I was in the military. I wasn’t really being the husband I should of been for her. I never cheated on her, but I really was ignorant. Anyways after realizing what happen I am so upset, I wish I could have pulled my head out my ass sooner but I did not and now I have to accept it. Anyways she has ended the affair but it was with a person close to the family and she works for him, sort of a family run business type situation. She has told me it’s over but she is not sure if she can commit to working on our marriage mainly because of the reason led her to be disruptive. But when I asked if she wanted to divorce she said she could let me go. I love her very much but she does not wear her ring anymore nor does she hardly tell me she loves me when I tell her. We do kiss but that is it, and the only time we have been intimate with each other was when we were under the influence but we were not drunk. The weird part is the sex was really good for both of us. I’m just not sure what to do because I love her but yet I feel very distant, and at times rejected and she is the one who had the affair. What’s your opinion?

    Reply
    Liza

    What a wonderful article, I wish I could forgive my boyfriend for his betrayal.
    It all started on December 14, when he decided to sleep at his coworker’s, even though I told him I didn’t think it was ok, and asked him not to do it. I received a message from him in the middle of the night, telling me that he drank to much and – even though he had planned otherwise – needed to sleep at a different coworker’s so he wouldn’t have to drive back. I don’t know why I knew he lied, but I did. And so I checked his messages on his computer. I knew already he had lots of contact to this girl, but after 7 years (we even moved in together 6 years ago) I didn’t think he would cheat on me.
    What I read hurt like hell: she was sick, and he said he told me that he was going to the Christmas market with a group of his colleagues but because no one actually wanted to go, he had the evening off to see her. So they cooked together, watched a movie that is my favorite, and he slept over. When I called him in the middle of the night I was devastated, but he insisted on staying.
    Then, the next day, when he came home he told me he loves me, I am his only love, the love of his life… and so forth, and that he would end it. I thought it was ok, I was ready to forgive. and then on the weekend, he changed. He told me he wasn’t sure anymore if he loved me at all, or what he wanted, or whether we had a future, and just needed to be alone.
    The longest week of my life began. I cried, screamed, didn’t eat, drink, or sleep. I was broken inside.
    Then we met on Thursday that week, to talk things over. He wanted to be honest, told me he did have feelings for her. Didn’t know what they were either. But he wanted her as a friend. And there was nothing between them except friendship. – I figured it was this emotional affair, I had read about. and indeed, all of the definitions made a lot of sense. I was so hurt that I wanted to let him go. I wanted to set him and me free from this pain. especially because I learned that the night before we met – before he wanted to talk to me, he had been with her to talk about what he wanted. And it doesn’t help me to know that she tells him to leave me over and over again. Basically its what she tells him every day.
    He was hurt, but instead of pleading or crying or showing any form of pain, he got in his car and drove to her to tell her about his pain…I was upset. and furious. How could he do this to me still? But when he got back, the next day we talked and he said things that made me want to get back with him. we spend the whole day in bed. It was amazing. Until he, again, got upset with me for some reason and then told me he only slept with me because he knew I liked it. Not because he wanted or enjoyed it. That hurt. Especially because he mixed these hurtful expressions with things like ‘I love you, I want to stay with you, you are the only one for me. My true love’. I love him, he knows it. I know it. I want to forgive him. But he kept writing her every day. HE kept calling her, talking to her, and on New Years she send him a picture message saying “whoever doesn’t make you happy needs to go, remember that!”
    and I know she means me. she told him I wasn’t good for him, and that life is nicer without me. And I can see that he is kinda fading away. Am I stupid for holding on to something that may not be there anymore? He was with her the day before yesterday, and yesterday. And he is upset that I want tp know about his whereabouts, and his messages. He says I take away his privacy, but I need that. I need to know, because it is driving me crazy. What can I do? I already packed my stuff, should I just go?

    Reply
    Anonymous

    I found out my boyfriend cheated on me while I was studying abroad. He kept it hidden from me and everyone else. I found out accidentally and it really messed me up. I know he is sorry, and he was one of those people who “cheated” but isn’t a cheater. It happened twice. It shook my world, I have never felt such pain in my life. It aches at my core, even 6 months later. We are working on our relationship and we are doing really well, but i can’t forgive him. I want to try, but a lot of the times I feel like it is unfair for me to forgive him while i feel embarrassed, betrayed, and broken.

    I’ve told him that I wanted him to feel the same gross disturbed feeling that I do… I know that isn’t right but I feel like it’s fair. Why should I have to be on this end? You know? Oh well.

    This article helped me though, I got emotional reading it. I still feel so lost even though its been 6 months. I think about what I saw every day and it just disturbs me the same way I saw it the first time.

    Reply
    Harley

    Being single, I have no experience with all this but I am thankful for your enlighting posting…

    Reply
    Sharon

    Hi ….want to share my life which has changed in past 15days.I’ve been married for past 17years.Thought I had a happy married life as my husband cared for me and I loved him from the deepest core of my heart.He never hid his phone chats mails from me 2weeks ago I happened to check his phone as he just returned from a trip ..I saw dirty chats with one of his colleague when I confronted he admitted there was only exchange of chats when I pressured her admitted he had physical relations too and asked me to forgive him..next day while fiddling with his laptop to find if there is anything more he is hiding …and I got some more hidden mails texts n found out he is having affair with his ex girlfriend since past 7-8 years and with her too physical relations whenever they met n exchange of sex chats..this time I lost my cool on contronting with the chats n pics as proof he admitted and also admitted he had one night stand with one more ex of his n in touch with her too.All this happened within 2 weeks still can’t belive how did he managed to hide all this ..he loved cared for me n our kids never hid his emails chats..Ive always been a dedicated wife loved cared for him.People complimented us of being an ideal couple then why what where went wrong.I asked him he says for enjoyment and extra sex.Our Physical relations were normal like any other normal couple.Now he is repenting saying sorry and asking for another chance.My problem is I have not shared this with anyone other than his sister..not even with my family fearing hurting them as they have high regards for him.Cant stay with him without him I hv 2,daughters thinking of judical separation..he is begging asking again.n again..dont know what to do where to go..sometimes feel if he is an sex addict as symptoms says so should I get his treatment done or should I leave him as I just cannot never ever be able to forgive him….

    Reply
    Karen Young

    Sharon I’m sorry this has happened to you. This isn’t sex addiction. If he was addicted to sex, why doesn’t he turn to you for that? Sometimes there is no pathological ‘label’ – it’s just bad behaviour and bad decisions. You can take as long as you need to make a decision.

    Reply
    L

    Karen,

    Thanks for this insightful article. What you have written really reflects how I have been feeling for awhile. About 2 months ago, my fiancee/best friend told me that she felt she had lost her romance spark for me, and wanted space to figure things out and make the right decision. We have been together for 5 years, and lived/moved together most of that time while we were in college. I moved some things out to live with a friend so she could have space. About a week later I went over to see our pets, and there was an emergency contraceptive box in trash. I asked what happened and she said it was some one time NSA hook up because she had confused feelings. I was hurt but optimistic still that she would want me back after more space, and supported her need for more time.

    Another week later, we spent a night together and had a good time; up until we talked about us–I pried it out of her that she had an affair for months with someone (who is also engaged) she had met at work. Apparently they had a spark for each other but she denied it for awhile. They wanted to keep things NSA, but that isn’t possible if you talk/flirt everyday at work with them and over text and have feelings. I became upset and even more hurt, because I thought I had been supportive with giving space and meeting the needs she wanted. She said she wasn’t ready to tell me when I found out, and that she planned to wait to tell me later on since I was already hurt enough; she didn’t want to lose me because of what she did.

    She listened to my concerns for weeks, and we both want to remain best friends, but it is hard because she feels bad for hurting me, and I am still recovering from being hurt. She is still seeing him, and they both have fell for each other. This is where it hurts me most, because I was removed from the picture and can’t really address anything to make our relationship any better now, because she is essentially with him. It was after the fact that she really told me that she hadn’t been happy the past 2 years, the imperfections in our relationship, what additional needs she needed fulfilled, and how she reached her “breaking point.” She thought that she was supposed to stay in the relationship and keep me happy no matter how she felt.

    I wish she had communicated with me beforehand, I would have moved mountains to make her happy and make things work. I still love her dearly and wish for a future together with open communication, but I can’t see that happening now, especially since her and him have found feelings for each other and her heart isn’t there for me. I have just been trying to focus on finishing my graduate school and use this space to do what is right for myself–I still think about her everyday though, and wish I could talk to her without things being tense and awkward. She has a new circle of coworker friends that she mainly hangs out with now too, so sometimes it seems like she is trying to not think about what we had

    I really wish I could boost my confidence and self-esteem again, but it seems so difficult now. I want her to be happy, and she wants me to be happy too; we both still love each other. I just wish that it didn’t have to be like this with her finding someone else to be with behind my back. I am trying to move forward with my life and be a happier person, and every day it does get a bit easier. I’m going to see a counselor this week, and have been talking to close friends about it. It has been nice reading other posts on here as well.

    Reply
    nemi

    I’m so sorry about how you feel. It does suck to love and be in love with a person who is no longer in love with you. I hope you heal and stop regretting everything you didn’t do in the relationship, because if she had let you know, you would have done all you could.

    I hope you feel better 🙂

    Reply
    RC

    For your own sake, move on from her. Cut off contact until you are okay. This sounds like a traumatic experience, and she should be ashamed for putting you through it. It feels like a caullous disregard for someone’s emotions.

    Reply
    Tbf

    This article has really opened my eyes, glad my boyfriend found it. We’re in the same boat as most of you. I’m the one who made all those mistakes. I never once had a sexual relationship with anyone, but in his eyes I still cheated. I talked to people and had an ex fling send me pictures. He’s upset because I never told him that I was friends with these people and about the pictures. I have made a lot of mistakes and lied to him about stupid things that I should of just told him the truth on. He’s went through emails, old phones, messages, pictures, everything and I can’t blame him I did this to myself. I cause all of this, I cause him to not be able to trust me anymore. We didn’t start the greatest way, but we didn’t let anything stop us and now we are at this point and don’t know if we’re going to get past it. Me personally I feel like he’s going to leave regardless but tells me I’m still there aren’t I, so that should say something. I seriously cannot take it anymore, I have so much love for this man, and it kills me everyday that I did this to him. I want nothing more to be able to go back in time and make this all go away, but I can’t we can only move forward. I really hope we can get through this. This is never something I never wanna go through ever again in my life. I just need my best friend back

    Reply
    Gemma

    I am ashamed to say I had an affair almost two years ago, it lasted 5 months and although it has ended my husband found out through hacking my emails 6 months later. It was such an awful time. I bitterly regret hurting him and despite trying to hard to get our marriage back on track (we have 4 children too) we are going through a truly terrible episode at the moment. The slightest argument over the day to day mundane makes my husband throw everything back in my face and two years down the line it’s making me miserable and feel worthless. I am sorry for my actions but he doesn’t believe me. I think he is angry at himself for not having the strength to leave me and the kids despite deep down probably wanting to. I don’t know what to do, I don’t want him to leave me but I don’t want to feel like this anymore. He won’t go to counselling. I am feeling so low.

    Reply
    Anonymous

    I am in your situation. I have 4 beautiful children with my husband. I had an affair it lasted 8 weeks. It wasnt a sexual affair but an emotional affair. I have said I am sorry and I truly truly am, but like your husband, he keeps throwing it in my face. He reminds me about what I did wrong and that I have no right to be upset if he says anything hurtful because I lost that right when I cheated, he reminds me at least 3 times a day, and I am exhausted by the constant begging and pleading I am doing.
    I can’t offer you advice but I just want you to know you are not alone. Being the one who cheated you are also feeling alone and sad and hurt but you are made to feel your feelings are not worthy because you had the affair but this is not the case, we are human too.

    Reply
    KV

    He does not get to continuously receive you! That is complete bs. You’ve owned up to your mistake, put your foot down on verbally abusive behavior. Just because you were the unfaithful one doesn’t mean he gets to invalidate your feelings. He has no “right” to treat you terribly. If he can’t handle his emotions in a constructive way he needs to find the nearest exit. He has every right to his feelings, but that is no reason for him to use the affair against you. A relationship won’t survive recrimination.

    Reply
    Mark

    Hi Gemma. I am a betrayed husband (5 kids, 17 years married, known my wife for 22 years). It goes to show just how devastating infidelity is – men suffer just as much as women.

    I think your husband probably needs some professional help to sort through, and understand his feelings. My wife is the love of my life and, while her 3.5 month physical and emotional affair reduced me to zero when I discovered it, I knew within hours that we had too much together to throw it all away. Of course, the real pain didn’t set in until close to a month later after the initial shock had subsided. However, I did a lot of reading and took the “right” approach – i.e. didn’t get angry with her, didn’t argue and I don’t use her affair as a weapon. If your husband wants to remain married to you then he needs some help to adopt such an approach for both your sakes.

    I think the unfaithful really fail to appreciate quite how deep the hurt runs. I consider myself a fairly “average” guy, not a wimp by any means, but I cried every day for the first four months after D-Day. It’s now 9 months and I still shed tears at least once a week, and there isn’t a day that passes that it doesn’t enter my mind. Plus I had an easy time with my wife compared to most – she never intended to leave me, she was immediately open and honest (as opposed to during the affair of course) about everything, she has shown genuine remorse, apologises daily, has never got impatient with my emotional state, has been willing to do whatever necessary to repair the damage, and we have now exhumed and put to rest many past issues and resentments.

    Unfortunately, infidelity is the gift that just keeps on giving. Although (ironically) I now have the relationship with my wife that I always wanted (we are closer now than we’ve been in decades), there are just so many layers and aspects to come to terms with – trust, beliefs, world-view etc. have all been shattered. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a very close parallel dimension, where everything looks and sounds the same, but is subtly different. My wife isn’t the person I though she was. It seems unfair that I’m still her “bedrock”, and that I haven’t changed, and that boundaries that she perceives with regards to me haven’t moved.

    Of course, she has suffered too (as you are) – there really are no winners or redeeming aspects to an affair. She has to deal with her own guilt and remorse; the magnitude of what she nearly lost overwhelms her sometimes. And, she got to watch the light go out of my eyes and get replaced daily with hurt and disappointment.

    Try to get your husband into counselling. I got some early on and it helped when feeling completely overwhelmed. I’m thinking of getting some more now. If he refuses you might have to separate for a while. There is nothing like reflecting on what one stands to lose for a while – it might remind him of what’s important and provide some perspective.

    Good luck.

    Reply
    Sanura

    My husband have affair like 7month I have one kid and l catch him and show my family and my husdand family when start verybudy say sham to my husband but when time goes very thing is fine but know problem is that he talk his family fine but he is talk to me less I don’t know what to do I need help

    Reply
    Berto

    How did you do it man? It’s been a little over a month since I found out my wife cheated. I’m still angry, I’m still hurt, I’m still confused. How do you know your wife isn’t still cheating? I don’t know if I should believe mine because when we were having issues I specifically asked her if I needed to be worried if there was another guy in the picture. she told me she was being blaintantly honest with me and there would be no reason to lie about another guy, but she was… how do I know she’s not still lying??

    Reply
    Michelle

    Get rid of all the chances she has to cheat. I now check my husband’s cell phone and check our cell phone records with his knowledge. I know where he is and why and he knows that I may easily show up to check on him. It sucks to lose the trust, but it is his job to get it back. I trusted him for 28 years of our lives, and now I have to question each and every day. I believed that he was faithful and I never had a reason to doubt. Now I have every reason and he knows it.

    Reply
    Mark

    One month is nothing in terms of the time it takes for this sort of thing I’m afraid. I was still wandering around the house in a daze after one month. I also kept checking my wife’s cell phone and her cell records online multiple times per day at this stage. Three weeks before getting conclusive proof I also asked my wife if there was something going on – she looked me in the eyes and outright lied. It was done to protect my feelings. She now realises that she can never lie to me ever again. I’m no longer checking up on her, however, I’m always a little on guard.

    It’s now 13 months for me and I’m in a much better place than I was 6 months ago. It took 7 months to get the other guy to leave her place of work (and our lives) forever. 7 months of torture and trauma (even though they both hated each other by the time he left). I sort of crashed after this and went on anti-depressants, which have helped a lot.

    Berto – the key question you have to ask yourself is “do I want to remain married to my wife?” Don’t rush to answer this now – you are far too emotional. Keep all options open and process it all for three or four months at least. You need some time for your emotions to settle (a little at least). If you decide to stay, the road is hard even under the best of conditions. I have been ready to throw the towel in many times, just because of emotional exhaustion, and I have 5 kids to consider too. However, we’ve come a long way and things are much better. It will *never* be quite the same though.

    Good luck!

    Reply
    Hopeful

    It’s been over 20 years for me and I still can’t get over my wife’s affair!

    It pains me to read all of these heart felt comments of true suffering from your cheating spouse, but sadly, I can tell you from personal experience, sometimes the pain never ever goes away…

    Twenty one years ago I overheard a phone conversation where my wife said… “ I was… but It’s over now.”

    I knew right then my life would never be the same. I confronted her.. she denied… after several confrontations she finally admitted to having an affair with an attorney we used to help us with a legal matter.

    I was beyond devastated. I could not function for weeks. We began counseling and I was so destroyed by her actions I had to seek psychiatric counseling and was put on hardcore antidepressants. Yes, I was truly devastated.

    I asked her questions about specific details of the affair but got vague answers or half truths. I mention this because this is a key factor in the long term healing process.

    Backstory:
    Although we were having problems at the time I felt we were working through them. Then one day she tells me she wants a divorce. When I asked her why she informs me she’s “In love with another man!”

    I was shocked to say the least. For the next several week she kept trying to get me to leave. We had a young daughter at the time and there was no way I was ever going to leaver my daughter…EVER!!!

    Despite her badgering about the divorce I stayed. The out of the blue a few weeks later she told me she didn’t want a divorce and I could stay. I must tell you I really thought prior to that we were headed for divorce.

    For the next several years I struggled with the pain of her affair. The constant movie that plays in your mind of my wife and this other man being physically and emotionally intiment never went away and tortured me for years.

    Slowly things got better. The movie eventually went away. Things seemingly returned to normal. We even had another child.

    Occasionally I would even tease her about the affair as a way of releasing pent up hurt and anger. I thought I was okay but I was soon to discover I wasn’t.

    A few months ago I was watching something on television that triggered a memory of one of the few details I was able to figure out about where the affair took place.

    It was a show about high priced homes and they were showing tours of these homes. I’ve seen these shows many times before but for whatever reason this particular empty house triggered the memories of my wife’s affair.

    My wife’s affair took place over a one month period at a empty house this married attorney had just bought but not moved into yet

    Remember… I am watching this show 21 years after finding out about… and dealing with… her affair and BAM!!!!!

    Ever since I watched that show three months ago all of the feeling of anger … hurt… depression… and resentment have returned. I’m right back where I was and it’s killing me.

    Fur those of us who have been the victims of an affair we are also victims of PISD: Post Infdelity Stress Disorder. It’s real. It’s exists. And you are subject to it whether you know it or not.

    Here’s a link to better understand PISD: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about-trauma/201503/love-is-war-post-infidelity-stress-disorder%3famp

    After several weeks of emotional torture I contacted the same psychiatrist and have begun therapy and meds again… I can’t fucking believe I’m back in the same place I was 20 plus years ago… that’s how deep the pain of infidelity cuts. It’s a wound that never truly heals.

    Here’s what I’ve learned that I didn’t know 20 years ago thanks to the internet: ask all the questions you need until you get all the answers you want.

    When I told my wife that the pain of her affair had resurfaced thanks to a PISD trigger from watching that TV show…we had several long and intense talks.

    I had a lot questions I need answered from her. There were the basic general questions like “how could you betray your daughter… I understand you were unhappy with me but how could you choose spending time with this guy when you could have been with this precious child of yours?” Obviously, she had no good answer for this other than to say she was unhappy and needed an escape.

    I also needed answers to specific questions. How long did the affair last? Where exactly did the affair take place? How many times did you have sex? How did you feel afterwards having sex with a married man in a vacant house? How did you end the affair? (she says she ended the affair after a few weeks) Why did you end it? What did he do after you ended the affair?

    It did help me with some of the timeline which made her story more believable.

    Remember when she said after a few weeks that all of a sudden she didn’t want a divorce? That’s right after she ended the affair and decided to work on her marriage for her daughter’s sake… which on some level is commendable.

    Our discussions were and are very emotional and we really got into it. She doesn’t like but she understands that its part of my healing process.

    She has told me that she is ready to answer any and all questions whenever I need it. This does help release pent up anger and pain and I do feel better after having these discussions.

    Had we done this the first time around I might not of had the relapse… hard to know.

    Please understand that I am fully aware that there is a good chance she is not being completely honest with me.

    Twenty years ago she said they had sex once. I found out recently that wasn’t true. I understand people in these situations are not always truthful or at best only telling half truths.

    She now says she was not in love with him but only infatuated. I have my doubts about that one. She acted like a woman in love and she said she was in love with another man… so she’s probably trying to cover her real feeling because she’s in denial or to spare me. Either way the pain of that statement stings to this day.

    But if you research infatuation as it relates to affairs it’s very common for people… especially women… to initially confuse the two. So it’s possible.

    Bottom line: get the info yo need to heal. If you can’t get that the pain will linger… I know from personal experience.

    Moving forward:

    There are days I love my wife and days I hate her and want to leave. It’s a terrible way to live your life.

    That child we had after the affair is now a teenager and …like his sister… the best thing in my life. I would never do anything to hurt him so I have to find a way to say in this marriage.

    Which is why I found this wonderful article and all of you amazing survivors of the trauma of your spouse’s affair.

    How do you forgive the unforgivable?

    I can’t seem to find the answer to that question. The reason we find it so hard to forgive is simple: for someone like us who would never think of commiting adultry the thought of being violated by someone we love and trust is so opposite to who we are it’s almost impossible to comprehend and therefore equally impossible to forgive and forget.

    I’m not sure I have it in me which leaves me in a marriage purgatory… which is not a good place. Time will tell if this wound will heal properly a second time for my wife and to move forward. I hope it does for our children sake.

    I want to leave my fellow victims of adulatory with one final message for you moving forward: you have been traumatized. One thing my psychiatrist happens to specialize in is dealing with emotional trauma and as you know first hand being a victim of adulatory is traumatizing. Please treat your woud with the proper emotional trauma healing. You need the proper counseling with someone who specializes in how to help you deal with your pain and trauma… especially if you have had other emotional trauma in your life ( I had a schizophrenic mother). Research the emotional trauma from an affair so you can better understand what you are suffering from and what you need to heal. Get the help you need. I can tell you from personal experience that even with the best help it’s a rough journey… without it you have very little chance of proper long term healing.

    Unfortunately, my journey is not over. Hopefully, the good days will far our number the bad and the memories will once again subside and never return on this magnitude.

    Can we and should we forget? Probably not.

    Can we forgive in time? God I hope so…

    Thank you for allowing me to share my story.

    Peace.

    Reply

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    First, we ask the questions of us:

Are they relationally safe?
- Do they have an anchor adult at school?
- Do they know how to access this adult?
- Do they feel welcome, a sense of belonging, warmth from their adults?

Do they feel safe in their bodies?
- Are they able to move their bodies when they need to?
- Are they free from sensory overload or underload?
- If not, what is their bare minimum list to achieve this with minimum disruption to the class, keeping in mind that when they feel safer in their bodies, there will naturally be less disruptive behaviour and more capacity to engage, learn, regulate.

Then we ask the question of them:

What's one little step you can take? And don't tell me nothing because I know that you are amazing, and brave, and capable. I'm here right beside you to show you how much. I believe in you, even if you don't believe in yourself enough yet.❤️

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    Boundaries aren't requests we make of them. They're the actions we take to keep them (and everyone else involved) physically safe, relationally safe, and to preserve values when they aren't able to.

The rule: Phones in the basket at 5pm.

The boundary: (What I'm going to do when you're having trouble with the rule.) 

'Okay - I can see you're having trouble popping your phone in the basket. I'm just going to sit beside you as a reminder that it's time. Take your time. I'll just watch over your shoulder until you're ready. So who are we texting? What are we watching?'

Or:

'I know you hate this rule. It's okay to be annoyed. It's not okay to yell. I'm not going to listen while you're yelling.' 

Then, 'This phones in the basket thing is chewing into our night when we start it at 5pm. We'll see how we go tomorrow and if it's bumpy, we'll shift to phones in the basket from 4:30pm. Let's see how we go.'

It's not a punishment or a threat. It's also not about what they do, but about what we do to lead the situation into a better place.

Of course, this doesn't always mean we'll hold the boundary with a calm and clear head. It certainly doesn't mean that. We're human and sometimes we'll lose our own minds as though they weren't ours to own. Ugh. Been there too many times. That's okay - this is an opportunity to model humility, repair, self-compassion. What's important is that we repair the relational rupture as soon as we can. This might sound like, 'I'm sorry I yelled. That must have been confusing for you - me yelling at you to stop yelling. Let's try that again.'❤️
    Boundaries are about what WE do to preserve physical safety, relational safety, and values. They aren’t about punishment. They’re the consequences that make sense as a way to put everything right again and restore calm and safety.

When someone is in the midst of big feelings or big behaviour, they (as with all of us when we’re steamy) have limited capacity to lead the situation into a better place.

Because of this, rather than focusing on what we need them to do, shift the focus on what we can do to lead back to calm. 

This might sound like:

The rule (what we want them to do): Phones go in the basket at 5pm. 

The boundary (what we do when the rule is broken), with love and leadership: ‘I can see you’re having trouble letting go of your phone. That’s okay - I’m just going to sit beside you until you’re ready. Take your time. You’re not in trouble. I’ll just stay here and watch over your shoulder until you’re done.’

Or …

‘I can see this phones in the basket process is dragging out and chewing into our night when we start it at 5pm. If that keeps happening I’ll be starting this process at 4pm instead of 5pm.’

And if there’s a bit of spice in their response, part of being a reliable, sturdy leader is also being able to lead them through that. Even if on the inside you feel like you’re about to explode 🤯 (we’ve all been there), the posture is ‘I can handle this, and I can handle you.’ This might sound like,

‘Yep you’re probably going to have a bit to say about it. That’s okay - I don’t need you to agree with me. I know it’s annoying - and it’s happening.’

‘I won’t listen when you’re speaking to me like this. Take your time though. Get it out of you and then we can get on with the evening.’

Then, when the spicy has gone, that’s the time to talk about what’s happened. ‘You’re such a great kid. I know you know it’s not okay to talk to me like that. How are we going to put this right? Let’s yet 5pm again tomorrow and see how we go. If it causes trouble we’ll start earlier. I actually think we’ll be okay though.’♥️
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