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.
Hi everyone,
I still can't believe that I was capable of cheating on my husband. We were only married one year after dating only for about 1.5 years. This was my second marriage, as I walked away from my first husband who was physically and emotionally abusive after a 4 year marriage and of 7.5 years of being together. The A lasted about 2 months and I ended it after realizing what I had gotten myself into. My AP was a long time friend who had been there for me through my divorce with my first husband, and he was also married to my friend. I betrayed my H, my friend, and hurt so many people I loved including myself. I attempted suicide with pain killers and still have passing thoughts that I may be better off dead, but I am seeing an IC who is helping me see how much pain I would leave behind. I have been repenting to God and praying to help me keep my faith in him strong to make things right with my H and family (both his and mine.)
I found out that my AP was in some way using our A to get away from his marriage. That also hurt a great deal as I really cared for him and loved him as a friend and even at one point thought about running away with him. But I came to my senses that this was just not right for us to carry on. The A came to light as my friend discovered my AP's messages with his buddies - he told many people about our A. My friend was very angry and let the whole world know, including my H's brother, sister and their spouses. My parents in law does not know at this time.
Through this experience, I realized that I never quite accepted myself and loved myself as I should, always seeking validation for my existence and acceptance in this world on others, especially my significant others. My H and I have had problems since we were engaged as we were not kind in how we communicated with each other. He is highly critical whether joking or serious, of everything about me from laughing at my physical features such as big ears, big feet, thick legs, and shutting down my emotions whenever I wanted to talk about my feelings by yelling out names like drama queen, high maintenance, and it is all in my head because I am mentally ill. These are no excuses for what I have done, but that is how I came to start confiding in my AP trying to get a guy's perspective on how I can get through to my H. And then one day my AP confessed that he had been in love with me since 2011 and held me in his arms. I felt so loved, and all my troubles seemed to disappear.
Back to now, my husband has decided to forgive me and give me another chance. And in the beginning he was very loving and committed to healing together. But I found that after 2 months, we are right back to where we started - unable to communicate. He asked me to get a psychological evaluation so I obliged. We are waiting for results. And he refuses to see a marriage counselor until we get those results, which I am totally fine with and understand. He is convinced I am mentally ill and I need to be fixed before we can begin healing our marriage. I keep telling myself that despite this, he does love me in his own way because he has forgiven me and willing to make our marriage work. We don't have children, so I know it is easier for him to walk than to try.
My parents in law are not aware, but they may get suspicious soon. My H's brother and sister are very angry and do not want to see me. So I have not been able to go to family events. My husband wants to give them time. He is very close to them and goes to them about everything. I know they know literally everything I have done and every detail of any fights we had or how we are progressing through this. I have asked my husband to tone that down a little that we really should work on our marriage without getting his brother and sister involved to that degree. So I think it will only be a matter of time before my parents in laws may suspect a bigger issue than they may suspect already.
So my question is:
Is it better for me to leave my husband, given that we have no children, and he can start over fresh with someone without being reminded of my A and constantly being reminded by his brother and sister of what I have done? I am afraid he will eventually be torn if his brother and sister is not able to accept that we are trying to work through this.
We have a very long way to go to heal from the A and on top of that even longer way to go in resolving our underlying issues of communication.
I know this is very long, so I appreciate you reading through the end. I am so lost, I love my H, and for once in my life, I am considering doing something good for someone else rather than me. I know I will be devastated if I lose my H, but I am willing to let him go, if starting over may be a better option for him and for him to have a chance to be happy with someone else.
Thank you.
I still can't believe that I was capable of cheating on my husband. We were only married one year after dating only for about 1.5 years. This was my second marriage, as I walked away from my first husband who was physically and emotionally abusive after a 4 year marriage and of 7.5 years of being together. The A lasted about 2 months and I ended it after realizing what I had gotten myself into. My AP was a long time friend who had been there for me through my divorce with my first husband, and he was also married to my friend. I betrayed my H, my friend, and hurt so many people I loved including myself. I attempted suicide with pain killers and still have passing thoughts that I may be better off dead, but I am seeing an IC who is helping me see how much pain I would leave behind. I have been repenting to God and praying to help me keep my faith in him strong to make things right with my H and family (both his and mine.)
I found out that my AP was in some way using our A to get away from his marriage. That also hurt a great deal as I really cared for him and loved him as a friend and even at one point thought about running away with him. But I came to my senses that this was just not right for us to carry on. The A came to light as my friend discovered my AP's messages with his buddies - he told many people about our A. My friend was very angry and let the whole world know, including my H's brother, sister and their spouses. My parents in law does not know at this time.
Through this experience, I realized that I never quite accepted myself and loved myself as I should, always seeking validation for my existence and acceptance in this world on others, especially my significant others. My H and I have had problems since we were engaged as we were not kind in how we communicated with each other. He is highly critical whether joking or serious, of everything about me from laughing at my physical features such as big ears, big feet, thick legs, and shutting down my emotions whenever I wanted to talk about my feelings by yelling out names like drama queen, high maintenance, and it is all in my head because I am mentally ill. These are no excuses for what I have done, but that is how I came to start confiding in my AP trying to get a guy's perspective on how I can get through to my H. And then one day my AP confessed that he had been in love with me since 2011 and held me in his arms. I felt so loved, and all my troubles seemed to disappear.
Back to now, my husband has decided to forgive me and give me another chance. And in the beginning he was very loving and committed to healing together. But I found that after 2 months, we are right back to where we started - unable to communicate. He asked me to get a psychological evaluation so I obliged. We are waiting for results. And he refuses to see a marriage counselor until we get those results, which I am totally fine with and understand. He is convinced I am mentally ill and I need to be fixed before we can begin healing our marriage. I keep telling myself that despite this, he does love me in his own way because he has forgiven me and willing to make our marriage work. We don't have children, so I know it is easier for him to walk than to try.
My parents in law are not aware, but they may get suspicious soon. My H's brother and sister are very angry and do not want to see me. So I have not been able to go to family events. My husband wants to give them time. He is very close to them and goes to them about everything. I know they know literally everything I have done and every detail of any fights we had or how we are progressing through this. I have asked my husband to tone that down a little that we really should work on our marriage without getting his brother and sister involved to that degree. So I think it will only be a matter of time before my parents in laws may suspect a bigger issue than they may suspect already.
So my question is:
Is it better for me to leave my husband, given that we have no children, and he can start over fresh with someone without being reminded of my A and constantly being reminded by his brother and sister of what I have done? I am afraid he will eventually be torn if his brother and sister is not able to accept that we are trying to work through this.
We have a very long way to go to heal from the A and on top of that even longer way to go in resolving our underlying issues of communication.
I know this is very long, so I appreciate you reading through the end. I am so lost, I love my H, and for once in my life, I am considering doing something good for someone else rather than me. I know I will be devastated if I lose my H, but I am willing to let him go, if starting over may be a better option for him and for him to have a chance to be happy with someone else.
Thank you.
Check out Marriage Builders website. As you get further along in the process that website and the books Dr Harley has written can help you a lot in the process of rebuilding your marriage and developing better ways of functioning as a couple. His book called His Needs Her Needs was the first book that our counselor had us read and it truly helped us revolutionize our marriage and made the rebuilding process, we believe, much more successful. We also read his book, more recently, called Surviving an Affair, and have been impressed with it. It has a many of the concepts from several of his books in it, so is pretty well rounded. If you read any of his books, this would probably be the one you would want to start with.
I think your husband may be focusing on mental illness because BS's are usually scrambling mentally to make sense of their CS doing such a thing. Frankly, I felt a little mentally ill myself there for a while. I think this is a good time to get very insulated with your H and for the two of you to just focus on getting through this and beginning the rebuilding/ recovery process. IOW just put the extended family issues on the back burner as much as you can. When they begin to see a lot of remorse and hard work coming from you and they begin to see you and your H successfully remaking your M and doing better together they will come around. Both my family and my H's family know. I'm sure their radar is up when they are around us, but we just act naturally and they can see how we are doing. They all treat me very well. I like to think they are proud of me now for how hard I have worked on myself and I think they are pretty impressed with how well H and I are doing.
It's all still so raw and painful, but just keep on keeping on, doing the best you can and I promise progress will be made if you are both doing all you can. It gets better ever so slowly. Get lots of help. This is not a do it yourself building project.
Rebuilding means that the marriage is a work inprogress to have a good loving marriage that you both want to be in. He should not be putting down your body or emotions. That's not to say his behavior excuses yours but it did add to your emotional state and certainly didn't nourish the marriage.
Im an advocate of rebuilding and believe that if both partners really want it they can work together to do it.