"They say" the average time to get over an affair is 2 to 5 years. Was the affair actually addressed or carpet swept and did you have any type of counseling?

Be thankful that your husband chose to work things out with you. My husband is having an affair after 37 yrs. of marriage and refuses to stop. Of course, he says he still loves me though. I know, what a jerk he is and I still love him. That's what hurts so much.

jess i found this site because my current partner had an affair. but i had a brief affair half way thru my first marriage and i tried for the next 13 yrs to pay my debt. i wanted so badly for my marriage to work and be happy and he could never let go. he knew that at that point he was destroying our marriage, but he just couldnt help himself. i finally asked for a divorce after 25 yrs of marriage. he is still my best friend. and he realizes now we both messed up what could have been great. he hasnt brought it up to me in a couple of years, even when i told him the man i live with cheated and i thought surely he would then. i love my partner but i would have given anything for our marriage to survive. my life, my kids lifes my ex's life it would all be so much easier, normal, financially we would both be doind great.

i guess i tell you this because my husband brought it up continually. he just kept the wound open. if you truly want your marriage to survive, go to a counselor who will help you let go. you are absolutely normal to have issues from this, but dont sabatage yourself. you deserve to be happy. find a way to let yourself.

god's peace to you friend.

Have you had counseling? I would think 2 yrs is a long time to hold on to this. I don't feel that any length of time is typical for getting over an affair. It depends on how you've dealt with the cheating and if you've had counseling or just kind of tried to forgive and forget and move on. If you didn't take the correct amount of time to heal 2 years ago when you first found out about the affair then yes you probably do need to figure a way to deal with it now. You probably need to go to counseling together and work on things. Its not fair to your spouse if you constantly bring this up in arguments and rub his face in it, especially if he is doing his job in making things work out and being commited to you. You can't keep a marriage going if you are constantly reminding him of the bad he did. Life is much too short.

Jess, first and foremost, I am terribly sorry for your pain. I know EXACTLY what it's like to still have anger that tends to pop up when you are angry at the other person, but Honey, you're not playing fair.

You definitely hold the trump card to "own" every argument, and you ABSOLUTELY have every right to have all kinds of feelings about what he's done. As others have mentioned, there is no time limit on grief.

Where you are making a mistake is in bringing this into every disagreement. When you have a disagreement or argument, it is crucial to STICK TO THE SUBJECT AT HAND. Playing the "but you had an affair so I win" card is just off-sides, and I think in your heart, you know it.

By bringing up all your angers and issues from the past, you are completely invalidating the legitimacy of anything you are discussing in the present - both your feelings AND his. You *do* need to talk to him about your feelings and let him know that you are still struggling, but the time to do this is when you are calm and rational and can just TALK to him. When you spit it at him like venom, the natural response is going to be him feeling defensive and wrong and guilty and shamed. Nothing productive or healing for either of you will ever come of that.

When you sit down with him calmly and tell him you are struggling, you have the opportunity to not only better understand each other, but you also BOTH get to talk about your feelings and give each other the comfort, support and assurance you really need to get through this.

I *know* this a lot harder to do than it is to say, but you are right - you are going to cost yourself your marriage if you can't keep this out of every argument.

When you need to get the venom out, post it here. DO get it out, but DO NOT use it as a weapon to win a battle. In the end, what good does it do you to win the battle if you lose the war?

You might be genuinely surprised at how HEALING it can be to come to someone quietly and calmly and just TALK about your feelings. No blame. No judgment. Just talk about how YOU are feeling, and let him talk about how HE is feeling. You'll be growing THROUGH the problem instead of using it to bludgeon him into silence. Until the two of you can really talk this out and re-establish your intimacy as a couple, I don't see how you CAN move forward.

It's been 7 years since my DDay. My husband is wonderful now and what makes it so hard for me to get past his betrayal is the fact that he could have been this way all along. But no, he had to just fall into the arms of a woman from his past who for whatever reason, won't let go. And sadly, from time to time, if I get pissed off enough, I will make a snide commentor two. So,I say to you,no matter how long it has been,even when we forgive, we don't forget. Try to let go of the past. When I find myself going there, I remind myself of the man he is now,his commitment, and the love he shows me, and THEN I tell myself: SHE is the fool for waiting in the wings for almost 20 years (off and on)m for a man who was ony with her for a season but realized she could in no way compare to the love of the woman he had in me. TO some it may sound silly, but it wasn't until 25 years into our marriage that we began to have problems and hooking up with her was his answer. He soon found that his problem wasdepression, post traumatic stress, and he was about to lose me and out beautiful children - he woke up pretty fast. I don't believe, as some do, the the affair was the best thing to happen to our marriage, but I can say he still worries that I may decide to leave or get even with another man and those fears have made him be the man I always KNEW he was inside. Now, I just need to get to the point where I don't think about it daily. Believe it or not, a day does not go by where I don't think about what he did, how he did it, and the pleasure she got from it because I have about 90% of their emails, texts, IM's, and other evidence.

Oops - I meant "15 years into our marriage"

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BetrayedasWell ~

You have been holding on to e-mails/IMs for 7 years that your husband got from the OW?? If you've truly forgiven him then why haven't you gotten rid of that stuff? Plus, 7 years ago people weren't even texting messages, or atleast I don't remember it being available yet at that time. But maybe I'm wrong. But really, why hold on to that stuff if you say you have forgiven your husband? I don't think anyone can forgive someone (and they definitely won't forget it) if they keep such information available to them to look at whenever they want. How depressing. How will you ever truly move on?

I keep it because I am not crazy enough to totally believe that it cannot happen again. I don't look at the stuff, but I do still have it. Honestly, the last time I even took the file out was 4 years ago. People were text messaging in 2002 if they had top of the line cell phones which he and she did through their jobs. He accessed his phone account on my home computer and since I was monitoring what he was doing, I then got access. He started this affair in late 200. I didn't find out until late 2001. Then supposedly they ended it but I found on two more occasions they were emailing and texting but not seeing each other in person because they thought that friendship was OK. How the hell they thought that I don't know. Anyway, like many people here have said, we all handle things differently. Just because I still have the evidence (should I need to show a pattern of behavior at some point in the future) does not mean I haven't forgiven. As for "forgetting", unless I develop amnesia, that won't happen and I will not claim to forget and live with rose colored glassed on.