Infidelity Support Group
Any relationship in which one partner engages willfully in sexual relations with another outside of the partnership is considered to have experienced infidelity. This breach of trust is often traumatizing for the faithful partner as well as the relationship, and support is often needed to heal emotionally and to decide whether or not the relationship should continue after...
My husband and I had been married 11 and a half years and together for 17 when I discovered he was having an affair with one of the soccer moms on my son's team, which my husband coached. It had been going on for about 2 and a half months when I found out. I confronted him at her house and he treated me as if I were the other woman. He didn't apologize or try to fight for our marriage at all. I was devastated, I believed he loved me above all else. I had warned him about this woman and he chose to ignore me and tried to convince me I was paranoid. I became suspicious after she showed up places where we were with our family. But I trusted my husband and never believed he would actually go there. I went to a lawyer the very next day and began the divorce process. For the next 2 months, he stayed with her a few nights a week and with his parents the other nights. He was inconsistent with visiting our 3 children and would not answer my phone calls or text messages after work, when he was with her. After he was served his papers, I noticed he started lingering while dropping the children off on the occasions he had them. I assumed he was trying to bait me into a fight. The weekend before we went to court for child support, he picked the kids up and wanted to talk to me, I refused to speak to him about anything other than the children. About 6 weeks ago, he called me late at night, crying. He said he felt like he was losing it and he messed up the best thing in his life and would do anything to come home and be with his family. That I made him a better person and he was done with her and that was not where he wanted to be. He swears it will never happen again because he knows what it is like to live without me, and he never wants to again. I told him he could not come home. If he wanted to try to work things out, he needed to go to counseling, as I was. Since then, he has really stepped up with the children. He hasn't missed any of his weekends and he gets them one evening every week. He has started counseling and I have started to think it is possilble to move forward, However, I also feel like I will never be able to forgive him for the disrespect not only he showed me, but that he allowed her to show to me and my family. She was very in my face about it and now I feel stupid for walking around, confident in my marriage when he was having an affair. I am still very angry and confused. How do I know he truly loves me and isn't just coming back because of the money he has to pay? And did he really break it off with her to be with me, or because she became so completely controlling, it made him miserable? Am I an idiot for even thinking about reconciling? I truly feel that, if it is possible, I would like to put my family back together. But how can I ever trust him again?
Make him move, far away from her. What better indication of his commitment to you and the kids??
The OW in my life is still on the scene as she works for my H and her office is just down the hall and their A lasted 3.5 years. I told my H
he needs to be making plans for us to move.
Another thing, although not as dramatic, is to have him make a call to her on speaker phone. Have him tell her you are listening and he then tells the OW it was a mistake to get involved with her and he loves you and is committed to you and your family. He then hangs up because this is not a discussion.
Trust? That's a hard one. He has to earn your trust. He has to do what you probably already know if you've been reading here:
total transparency, accounting for his time, gives you all his passwords, etc., etc.
I felt pretty stupid, too. Especially now. It's been almost exactly 2 years since D-day and I am learning still that the OW was shooting her mouth off about their A. She was making plans to marry my H.
We've made it and we had a lot more stacked up against us than you. Sounds like you and I both had a barracuda after our husbands. I assume yours is divorced? Mine is married but willing to toss her H aside once she secured another.
Take him back but with conditions. Make it difficult for him. He has to earn his way back, apologize for what he's done, and make it up to you. Get into MC together and make a plan.
It does sound like the fog lifted for him and he's shocked even himself. This is good. But it doesn't erase the pain or undo the damage he's done.
Good luck and keep us posted. In the meantime. hold your head high; you've done nothing wrong, in fact you sound like a strong and level-headed woman. Let that barracuda slink around town like the snake she is; I'd post her on Cheaterville so when someone googles her, they learn the truth.
These are all tough situations that we are put in when infidelity enters what we believed was a very secure and safe world. My CS and I have chosen to work on the marriage instead of kicking it to the curb but I understand every marriage is different and I respect all in the hard decisions others must make for themselves and their families.
If you are going to try and recover the marriage at this point it is going to take a TON of work and he needs to be upfront and completely on board with everything "daledge" spoke of earlier, total transparency, new cell #, no fb acct. etc...
The hurt will always be there, well at least for me it is after a year and a half out from dday, but luckily as we move forward new memories are made daily and I hope to someday have a enough new ones to replace the ones that still anger and hurt so very much.
The trust thing will build and grow as the two of you as a couple do the same, AND we are all much wiser now for having been victims of an affair so listen to your gut much more closely this time around and if something should seem amiss it probably is. Because I'm so overly in tune with my spidey senses now my CS has to go above and beyond to reassure me of every little thing because I refuse to stick my head in the sand ever again.
Good luck with whatever choice you make and listen to yourself closely, you'll know what is best for you and children and once you do the healing can begin
I understood for worse to be my wife is in a car accident and wheelchair thereafter and is reliant on me to bathe her or something along those lines.
When I discovers her affair, I got to the viewpoint of it being a very different for worse. But still the kind of for worse that a marriage could survive. Humans can get pretty off kilter, maybe menopause or getting close to 50 or God knows what else got her sideways.
I think if there is a chance to reconcile that marriage vows and children obligate us to try. I still loved my wife very much. She just wanted to end the marriage and blame me for everything.
If you husband seems to be genuine, give him a chance ---- with parameters if he accepts what it takes, maybe you could consist that he is embracing the right thing and you and his family.
It was crushing for my wife to just say eff it.
I imagine it has to be a different kind of painful road if she wanted to try.
I hope the right thing works put for your children and you
If you want to give him another chance, I'd certainly put some strong conditions on it. A lot goes into this, so I'll point you to some articles I wrote that can detail this out much more fully than I can here.
Here is a list of articles. Key would be the Healing Steps series. He'd need to be on board with the steps in the CS one.
http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/healing-infidelity-through-faith/news/
Help for New Betrayed Spouses
http://healinginfidelity.blogspot.com/p/help-for-new-betrayed-spouses.html
On that blog, you can also find a lot of articles to help you with. A key one is:
Should I Leave or Stay?
http://healinginfidelity.blogspot.com/2013/10/should-i-leave-or-stay.html
"he must be willing to stand strong in the midst of the storm that he created."
Cheating creates the devastation of a hurricane, earthquake, tsunami, etc in your marriage. many CS's say they "want" their family back. but they are unwilling to endure the fallout of the storm they set in motion. there is hard work to be done after infidelity, and a lot of it can make the CS very uncomfortable. my stbxh grew tired of being transparent after 3 months; he said i should already believe him that he was just talking to friends, so he should have more privacy. red flag... your CS will need to be able to handle a new kind of openness, transparency, and honesty to rebuild the trust he broke. just things to think about. big big hugs and support to you regardless of which route you choose to take
The best thing got can do is continue your counseling and the path your on. During this time you can better evaluate his intentions. You can go for the legal separation and child support to be a compromise on divorce while still keeping him in the financial perdicerment he may be fearing and reacting to.
It's a good way to see how serious he is. What would be the worst thing that could happen? He revives his A or begins a new one? As my therapist told me "you will stand up and dust yourself off"
There is no way answer here. I hope you have some serious guidelines in place even during the time he is "proving himself" and beyond.
I told him I would consider giving him another chance if I saw changes. But as the days went by and he tried to get closer to me, I felt so uncomfortable. I still felt angry and confused. How could I rebuild a relationship when I was still angry? I just didn't see him the same anymore. I hated the feeling of not knowing what I should do. I eventually made the decision the other day to continue on with my life without him. As much as I would like my family together, I could not see him the same way again without remembering the past. I would always hold it against him.
Tread very carefully. I know others who have made it work, and I give them a lot of credit. It's very difficult. I know for myself, now I am happier than ever because I don't have to wonder what he is doing. I just live my life.
Good luck on whichever way you go! It's such a tough deicision.
I know how that might sound to some, but it is reality and some of us have to take it into consideration. But in all fairness , I don't think it's something I apologize for.