Cheaters Anonymous Community Group
This is a support group for cheating spouses looking for understanding and strength. Betrayed spouses are welcome to post ONLY if they can do so in a supportive manner (no bashing...these posts will be deleted), and please do not comment on 'Cheaters Only' posts.
Question: Has anyone been the cheater and then...really not known whether or not to continue with their marriage? It's been 3 months since my husband found out (when asked, I admitted it) and I felt like I tried to be open to reconcilliation for maybe 6 weeks before it was too painful every single interaction and filed for divorce. Even after filing, different things have brought up emotions that make me wonder if it's the right decision. He didn't want to let me go and so I postponed the final court date another 3 months at which point I'll go through with the divorce or dismiss the case. I feel like I'm going through the motions of trying to reconcile but I don't feel a strong pull to stay.
Backstory: My husband and I have been drifting apart the past 3 years. We have been together 10 and married for 5. He has been undiagnosed bipolar for the past 6 years (prior to that time he was on antidepressants which helped with his mood and ability to take care of himself), but the past 2 years have been especially difficult. I just found out I'm codependent and had been taking financial and emotional care of him for about 18 months. We both made mistakes (he wouldn't seek help when I asked him to, was reclusive to the point of not talking to me, sleeping in the same bed, having sex, doing anything together) and I looked for social fulfillment and human connection outside of my marriage (dancing, going to social gatherings, etc. without him). I also wasn't good at keeping boundaries and allowed myself to be used and then gaslit when I tried to express my needs. We did marriage counseling a year ago (that was when I told him if things didn't change I knew I'd want a divorce) and it helped for a short while and then we went back to how we had been living. Then we were arguing nonstop each night for almost a week and...I felt like all the love and goodwill I had kept for my husband evaporated, it was just gone and I was an empty shell. All these things led to me reconnecting with an on and off again friend I have known since childhood because he was someone who listened to me without judging me harshly (the way I was used to being torn into by my husband).
The constant fights with my husband triggered traumas from my childhood and I didn't feel I had anywhere else to go, I needed to leave to feel safe. I thought "what does it matter, I know this isn't a good idea but I don't know how to leave so I'll make this bad decision and then everything will just go down in flames." I wasn't good at hiding anything and when I returned my husband knew and asked me. I told him the truth (which was that we didn't have sex, but other things happened) and it was like this made him realize how much I didn't want to be in the relationship. He told me he still wanted to be married and that we needed to work on it. Except a few days later he was starting with the arguments again about past issues (I don't defend myself and they always ended with me sobbing). I was ready to move in with a family member who is out of town when my husband checked himself into a psychiatric hospital to be treated and medicated immediately. I was so relieved to be away from this person who had been hurting me over and over for so long.
He hasn't returned to live at home since getting out of the hospital. I was nauseous and losing weight before the affair then when I came home from the affair, and when he went away I was finally able to eat. We went to marriage counseling sessions again and we could talk in the office, but not really outside of our weekly visits. People have often told me he was so gentle, kind, compassionate and yet at home in private I received none of those things in recent memory. It was only me who saw his ugly side. It got to the point where we both had so much pain from so long of living in a dysfunctional relationship I didn't think we could overcome it and so I filed for divorce (mostly as a way of trying to escape the pain).
During this time I continued to see the friend (without telling my husband) and knew that I was using him as an escape, someone to take me out of my current moment. I don't like that about myself, that I'm willing to use a person like an object. My friend said he doesn't feel used so therefore he isn't being used, but I know that I haven't conducted myself well or to the level of integrity that I want to live. The thing is, my friend really is a kind, interesting, and complex person I enjoy talking to. I know I'm not well and am going to therapy and support groups to help me understand and practice healthy relationships. I don't feel capable of being married or of trying to start something romantic with the friend (which I know would just be me making past mistakes all over again).
But I'm reading all these divorce books on how to work on the relationship and I wonder if I'm not trying hard enough? Shouldn't I feel more strongly about staying? My husband has been going to therapy and been medicated long enough now that we don't have dragged out arguments but our conversations go in circles. We don't feel we can be our authentic selves. Even a month before the affair I still remember the thoughts "this is hard, but I'm still glad we are together and married." All those arguments and the piled up tension of years of neglect in the relationships felt like they drained all my love. Do people recover their love? I read a lot about the cheaters begging the betrayed spouse to stay. That isn't me. I don't know what I want. How will I know? My husband told me the other day "I'm not going to change for you" which...I thought "I don't want to change for you either." It doesn't sound promising and I wonder if I'm just fooling myself going through these motions to maybe just divorced anyway. Both of us are now doing things independently and feeling...revitalized in some ways in which we haven't in years. He thinks divorce won't solve "the problem" but I wonder...do we even like the other person for who they are?
If your friend disappeared or were no longer and option, would you still want to stay? Do you want to leave to get TO your friend or just AWAY from your husband - even if you end up alone.
I guess my only reason to stay would be there has been a lot of time, energy, and shared history with us. Also I hold myself to this standard of trying so hard not to fail. This feels like a failure (we both contributed to the environment, but I feel the heavier burden with the affair). No children, he has a full time job now and has been taking care of himself.
He's even been looking to buy a house which pains me because it was something I had wanted a long time (he only was interested because I was) and we had been saving for until all this (I used half the shared savings for a car, I had no mobility to leave when it got bad). I can financially support myself though I have to be a lot more strict.
I feel my friend will be my friend regardless of all this. I am not counting on him for romance and know I am not a good romantic partner right now anyway. He lives hours away so it isn't like my life is enmeshed with his. If he were gone out of my life I would be sad, but I don't know if it would make me strongly desire to remain with my husband. My husband I feel I could stay with and...my life would not be as free or energetic as it is right now and I wonder if long standing marriages feel that way? That the person is good enough and checks the boxes.
My heart is so hurt. A mere 6 months ago I felt my husband was truly the best person for me despite all the problems. But I was also severely codependent and made my life about taking care of him and receiving no support (financial, emotional, any interest in me as a person) for quite sometime. Now that I've been taking care of myself the world feels so much wider. I let myself feel unworthy of the things I wanted (to have sex on a regular basis, to receive hugs, to spend any time together doing anything - all these things were reasonable but I was rejected over and over and I know some of it was his mental health but some was my lack of respect/love for myself).
I'm scared of being alone still, I just don't know if I want to pay the price of a "just ok" life. In that regard I feel like a "typical millennial." I keep waiting to feel a strong urge: definitely stay, definitely go.
As for your H, it will take much more time than 3 months for him to recover from your A, depending on what kind of a person he is, whether you truly want to save your marriage & whether he will agree to marriage counseling. I'm thinking more like 2 to 3 yrs. Even after that men usually want total transparency bc they never truly trust their wives again. I'm not being sexist. It's just the basic difference between men & women.
So to the poster....if you and your husband are both trying, or at least wanting to try....the affair will only get in the way of this process.
"But I'm reading all these divorce books on how to work on the relationship and I wonder if I'm not trying hard enough? Shouldn't I feel more strongly about staying?"
I am about to give you the best advice you will hear: the divorce books are just wrong. And no - it is not a problem of you not "trying hard enough" or what you "should feel." There is a major fallacy in what you are reading and internalizing and being counseled for. It's all just wrong. I will explain now.
A cheating spouse's usual reaction is to immediately reassure the spouse when the affair is found out. "It's already over" or "It was just a moment of weakness" and every possible disclaimer is thrown out there. These are often lies. It was neither. Your spouse found out about you in a conduct you were presently doing and willing to continue doing had you not been found out. No change of heart was had on your own - you just want to get back to equilibrium and now these falsehoods are your only way to get there.
Unfortunately, it does not end there. Next comes even more scrambling. We promise the spouse we will stay and "work on the relationship." Then you do everything to try to assure that spouse. You go on a campaign of love, support, and "I'm sorry." OK - that's human. No matter how honest you believe you are, or even actually are, this is all but completely doomed.
I am not trying to undercut your good intentions - far from it. I applaud them.
It is not, however, true that your intentions will carry the day here. They will not. Everyone falls into a big misconception (myself included, years ago) that must be addressed. Simply put, no relationship can be "worked on." It is not like a broken down car that can be taken to a garage and fixed. It is not a "thing" at all. It is actually a description of the activity that occurs between you and your spouse, which is undertaken independently by each individual.
A relationship is not a "thing" - it is an interaction between you that is entirely defined by you and your spouse's willful behavior. You are not - and no one is - in full control of this. In fact, I would argue you are not even in some control of it. You can change your behavior, you can influence his, but it is not in your hands. He acts, and it might affect you. You act, it might affect him. But it all his act and all your act when either happens. That is all it is is. Anything outside of this is not a relationship. It is a record.
To carry this further, let's consider a hypothetical. Even if you do everything *right* - no affair, total attention, complete honesty - how do you know what will come next? You do not. Heck, let's go all the way - suppose that you find yourself entirely *smitten* once more and in the mode of "oh what a mistake - he is just so wonderful and I have been blind" - the actions you each take - independently of one another - are still a function of your independent will, guided within each fleeting moment..
Think of each moment as a wave within water. One wave crashes onto the sand and disappears entirely. It had no objective existence. It is gone. Another wave forms in its place. Maybe it is a big wave, a small wave - or maybe no wave at all - but it is, again, a function of the water. It is not the water. The form and progress of the wave is influenced by the details of where it occurs. It looks one way on the water, and is another way when it reaches the beach. But it is is still a wave and it surely ends, whether there is a big beach, a few rocks, or a wall. It is a wave when it is huge - like a tidal wave - a wave still when it is mere ripple. It comes, it goes, it is gone.
That is what you and your husband are - the water. The actions - the wave -- combine to form what we call a "relationship." But the people are what they are and stay as such. The water behaves a certain way, but it stays water. You and your husband behave in a certain way, but you are still yourselves.
You really want to continue being married, in earnest? OK - consider what could happen if you give your spouse exactly what they want. Your guiding belief will be that the spouse will do the same. But does that ever work? Is this realistic at all? Shouldn't your spouse have been willing to look out for you all along? Why would you have an affair if that willingness existed in the first place? And come on - is your affair at all likely to make your spouse *more willing*? Consider now what happens when all your best efforts ends up not getting to what you want?
There is a great deal written and counseled about this truth - and this is where the the real responsibility is - to the truth. You won't be able to undo the past. You cannot "patch things up" because your relationship - not a thing but an activity. The relationship will be no more - and no less - than the combination of both your actions, its form constantly shaped and reshaped by both your actions, and at every moment.
What I recommend here is a change of mindset. If you think of your marriage and any other relationship as an activity, not an external "thing", you can change your language and wording, both internally and to your spouse, to be far more accurate to the situation and much less likely to make you doubt yourself. Instead of saying "I need to break up" or "this needs to end" - which implies the fallacy of some outside entity that is being destroyed or put to death - call it for what it is. "I have chosen not to continue this relationship". Or "I can no longer find the willingness to relate to you in a way that you want and I no longer have faith that you are willing to do the same." This is not only accurate but it rids you of the feeling that you are destroying something - something that actually does not exist - and puts you in charge of the next step.
Get out of the water now. Stop letting the waves just take you. Take yourself as you are - the true reality, not what you do or someone else does. Get moving, start swimming. Get where you want to go and leave that "relationship" to what it is and always was - just an activity that you choose not to do anymore.