SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Good morning all,

Looking for some perspective.

I am a 45 year old lady, living in the uk. 🇬🇧
Husband had an affair 2 years ago. Very brief in nature compared to what some of you have been through but the mistress happily spilled everything to me ( which at least means I know how seedy it all was but was traumatising to hear none the less) she basically told me to step aside for their "real love". He dumped her pretty quickly because of her contacting me and we had lots of recriminations from mistress. He moved out ( not with her) but was back home pretty quick and a cycle of sex bonding, arguments, split ups has taken place. In the intervening years there have been times where I have thought we will be fine and others where I could happily strangle him.

He is in full mid crisis mode and very vain but this is just a cover for his insecurity. I don’t think he has had another affair but he does keep engaging in hypothetical questions about who I would marry next and bizarrely if we divorce , his feelings that he would still want to see me for sex because that has never been a problem!. Going on to say that I can cheat on my husband with him if we get divorced.

Frankly this is all a massive headfuck. When I try to pull away and focus on myself - he accuses me of making an effort for another man. There is no other man - I focus on our teenagers .

Can I ask is anything of this normal? . I am losing heart ❤️ that we can make it work and sometimes I think that I might be better by myself. It’s all nerve wracking though as he was my first love.

Are these just the things that happen in the early years post affair where we are both finding ourselves? We had relate counselling and were commended for being open and having a good rapport.

Any advice welcome x

ENB,

I'm so glad you found us but sorry you had reason to. There is a wealth of experience and perspectives here, so take to heart what serves you best.

One of the reasons you may be caught in yoyo-ing cycles of trying to be together and heal and then be apart and wonder if that might be better is perhaps that your wayward husband (referred to around here as WH) hasn't dug into and owned his reasons for the affair and worked to fix his own core issues to become a safer partner for you.

You seem to describe what we would call marriage counseling (MC) but not individual counseling. Please consider looking for individual counseling (IC) for yourself with someone who specializes in betrayal trauma. If you do seek counseling and your counselor begins to nudge you toward a "shared responsibility" model for the affair (as in "what did you do that contributed to your husband's affair?"), find a new counselor.

Was your relationship perfect before he decided to cheat? Of course not. But it wasn't perfect for you either (and no relationship is ever perfect), and yet you didn't choose to seek an outside affair. So, affairs aren't "caused" by marital dissatisfaction. Yet, cheaters often justify affairs based on this.

Please be assured that the affair was in no way your fault. It was a result of repeated self-focused choices on the part of your husband. It was caused by his own "whys"--likely a combination of self-focus, lack of self-reflection, avoidance, and lack of empathy. Cheating spouses do a lot of lying to themselves (along with lying to others).

So, has he owned and consistently worked on the core issues he has that allowed him to want to break his vows and to justify it to himself?

Has he sought individual counseling with someone who will hold him accountable?

It's concerning that he is so absorbed by the idea of you cheating when you focus on yourself and your own healing. Seems like he's projecting his own thinking and behavior on you. His focus on you cheating with him if you were to divorce and remarry also seems like a huge red flag that his basic thinking about infidelity hasn't shifted.

Along with seeking a supportive counselor for yourself, please consider giving yourself the space and time you really need to focus on yourself and your own healing. This can be done by actually living separately or even by living separately in the same house but using a "180" approach where you draw strong boundaries that focus on you and your kids (emotionally and physically) and avoid giving him traction in your life. Don't cook for him or do his laundry. Don't engage with him beyond what's required for coordinating your kids schedules, etc. If he wants to accuse you of cheating, ignore him. Don't engage.

Look for the Healing Library in the menu to this website. There is a lot of good information there, including the 180 approach.

You need time to really get your feet under you and heal. Taking care of yourself is critical.

Please don't confuse rugsweeping with healing. If you consider reconciliation, he has a ton of work to do. Even if he does the work, you have to decide if you want to be in a marriage with someone capable of making such destructive and selfish choices.

Whatever you decide is okay. Whatever timeline you have is okay.

Take care of you and your kids and do what you need to do to be safe from emotional abuse and trauma.

(((Hugs to you)))

[This message edited by BreakingBad at 11:59 AM, Monday, April 8th]

Frankly this is all a massive headfuck. When I try to pull away and focus on myself - he accuses me of making an effort for another man. There is no other man - I focus on our teenagers .

To be blunt, he sounds pathetic. You need him to be a better person after the affair than he was before the affair for this to work. It looks to me like he’s no different now from what he was before the affair. The only difference is that you caught him so he has to tell a different set of lies, and act out a different set of weird behaviors. None of which you need to tolerate.

He's either very insecure, still wayward, or both.

So, has he owned and consistently worked on the core issues he has that allowed him to want to break his vows and to justify it to himself?

I'm going to go ahead and answer this for OP: A big fat NO.

hypothetical questions about who I would marry next and bizarrely if we divorce , his feelings that he would still want to see me for sex because that has never been a problem!. Going on to say that I can cheat on my husband with him if we get divorced.

I second what HOP said.

More counseling is in order, except I recommend that you both seek individual counseling for right now. I think occasional MC could be helpful for checking on progress.

This stood out to me as well

Going on to say that I can cheat on my husband with him if we get divorced.

He is explicitly telling you he doesn’t think cheating is wrong and in fact would like you to share his morals on that. You get to decide if you do….not if you want him to change. Don’t try to look at it through your morals and assume he holds the same.

I echo the sentiments shattered here. I would definitely do as sacred suggests and focus more in IC with MC there for check ins.

He wants you in his level so that he can be absolved. He doesn’t want to work on this, he wants for you to do the same thing and be even.

He also may harbor fears that you are going to divorce him and is offering wayward suggestions to try and make deals about that to make sure what he wants is covered.

The most troubling thing to me in all of that is he wants to make sure that he could still have sex with you no matter what direction. That sounds to me like that is what he values most from you stated this way and I would be very concerned about that.

However, what you asked about wasting time- the best way I can tell you is if you have worked on yourself and evolved it’s not wasted time. People have to be sure about their decisions sometimes and you shouldn’t beat yourself up because it takes what it takes.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:43 PM, Monday, April 8th]

You absolutely have not wasted the past 2 years. Whatever the outcome - eventual R or D. Even if he is not working on himself, you have been working on yourself.

My XWH stayed together for over 3 years before deciding to D. I probably instinctively knew on D Day that it was a dealbreaker (I do actually remember saying that evening that I would have to leave him). But he begged for a second chance, my youngest child was only a year old, and so I gave it a shot (and took time to get my ducks in a row). In the end it became clear that I wasn’t going to get past it. But I don’t regret the time spent trying. I got myself into a better place during those three years, had A LOT of IC, and although I certainly was by no means healed (I’m definitely on the 5 year end of the 2 - 5 year timeline that is mentioned on here a lot) I was better than at D Day. Also, since I was done having children at that point, I wasn’t racing against a biological clock.

It’s incredibly nerve-wracking, wearing and stressful. At 2 years in I was still going back and forth. I was angry, sad, grieving my old life, hoping for a better M…it was still a rollercoaster (and continued to be for a long time). Do focus on yourself, take the time to decide what you really really want.

[This message edited by Perdita1 at 9:48 PM, Monday, April 8th]