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...

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kajohu 04/20/2013

I know this is asked all the time and there are tons of articles and other people's accounts of how they dealt with a cheating spouse. But nothing seems to be working. I don't know if I'm just a horrid person who can't forgive or what my problem is. I still hate the OW so much! I get really angry at my husband sometimes too. It's been 5 months since I found out and I feel like once a week I just break. I get so angry and upset. I hate him and think all I want to do is just be done with this. It seems like it would be so much easier to heal if I wasn't still trying to maintain a relationship with him. He has apologized and done everything I've wanted. He even called her in front of me to tell her they were done because she wouldn't stop texting him. I feel awful and ugly and worthless. She is much younger than I am and much prettier and thinner than I am as well. I keep waiting for him to decide he would really rather be with someone like her than with me. I've spent my afternoon crying and just feeling miserable and trying to refocus myself on something more important but I feel so stuck. I want revenge but I've read that is useless and can actually fulfill the void of the OW plus what if she doesn't even care. Here I am stuck in this mess that I can't heal from feeling like such a wreck and she doesn't even remember his name? I don't know how she feels really but it seems likely I'm the only one still hung up on this. The really awful part is that they work together. He still sees her on a regular basis and the affair occurred on his lunch breaks so I never had a clue anything was happening. Anytime he is late or slow to respond to a text or phone call my mind quickly finds the worse scenario and builds my demise. I don't want to spend any more of my days crying and feeling like a lump of nothing.

pinkpony66 04/20/2013

First off, I'm sorry that you are in this situation. It is a very long and rocky path. We are all here for you so hang out for a while.

I would ask first if either of you tried ic(individual counseling) or mc(marriage counseling)? If not then that would be a great start. Remember that the counselor needs to be somebody you are comfortable with.

Second question is , how long have you been married and do you have children?

5 months is not very long. It can take a couple of years to find a place in your marriage where you are happy and learning to trust.

The fact that they work together is adding insult to injury. Is there any way he could request a transfer to a different location or department?

Sending cyber ((((hugs))))

gina666 04/20/2013

I would make my husband get a different job.That is to close for comfort in my eyes.How long were they having an affair?I know exactly how you feel with the esteem even though my h ow was hideous.I felt the same way but the one thing the ow does not have that you do is Morals.She is a piece of shit.It has been over a year since my dday and I still get angry.It takes time.I am so sorry you have to go through this.

deleted_user 04/20/2013

It has been a year tomorrow since I found out who I am married to and what he is capable of....go read my journals and posts...feel free to PM me and ask any questions I may not have answered.....SO SORRY YOU ARE HERE, IT SUCKS, AND IT HURTS BAD FOR A LONG TIME....

kajohu 04/21/2013

We have been married for over 7 years and have 2 children. We have discussed transfer or another job but so far nothing has panned out. He wants nothing more to do with her and I pretty well trust him but it's just infuriating knowing she is still around. We hit bottom and because of that he knows he loves me and wants only me and we communicate now but sometimes I don't know if that matters. He wants to be anywere but where he is. His relationship with her started as just talking. She was someone who listened and made him feel good about himself. I am a full time student right now and I put him on the back burner and I realize that now but it hurts to know he took this path instead of trying to talk to me. On one hand our relationship is so much better, we love, laugh, and talk so much more but some days are so dark and I don't think I can stand the heartbreak or the movies that play in my head over and over imagining how things must have been between them. I know it can be 2-5 years to heal but who wants to look at your husband every day for that long knowing what he did to you and how much it still hurts. Part of me doesn't feel like I have a choice since I do have two young children and no income right now. And I feel horrible because he is so understanding and he has put up with everything I have said to him and pretty much never argues back. He wants to make this work and I do too but there is this awful whisper in the back of my mind and it is always there, a constant reminder of it.

lisalisa72 04/21/2013

(((hugs))) and lots of empathy for you, kajohu.

It took me about 2.5 years to get past the urge to punch my CS in the face for being such an idiot. Like everyone above said, it takes awhile to work through this process.

Are you in counseling -- either individual or couples?

One of the best books I've read on the subject is "NOT Just Friends" by Shirley Glass. It really breaks it all down to help you understand why it happened and what it all means.
http://www.amazon.com/NOT-Just-Friends-ebook/dp/B00120955S/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1366593625&sr=8-1&keywords=not+just+friends

Hang in there - it gets easier with time!

deleted_user 04/22/2013

Well it definitely sounds as though you have done your research, which to me means your better off than I am. I have done no research and have just been going through the motions of life. Some days are better than others. Sometimes I feel deeply in love with him and fully enjoy our lives together, and then other days I wake up crying and spend the rest of the day like that. Very rarely can I EVER get the images out of my mind, though I know none of the details....its all what I've made up in my own mind. I've only known "for sure" for about a week now, but I've "known" for almost 13 years. Meaning, I always suspected it, but he would never fess up. It still hurt when I didn't know for sure, all these years, but now that I know for sure it hurts all over again. and again and again. I know that one day it will stop hurting and I will be able to move forward, but that day is not today. I don't know when that day will be, but I know it will come. I get support from everyone on here, sometimes I try to talk to him about it and other times I just can't bring myself to talk to him at all. He bares with me, but I know it makes both of us nuts! We just take one day at a time for now. He just started individual counseling and shortly we will be starting Couples counseling...I'm hoping that will help tremendously with the healing process. I just want to be able to move on. Hopefully sooner than later. You will just have to hang in there and keep coming back :)

kajohu 04/22/2013

I'm so grateful for everyone's inpu and advice. It is nice to see there are others though also heartbreaking because it doesn't seem fair that anyone has to go through this pain! I've heard and read that men think differently than women and that's why they so often have these affairs but it doesn't make me feel better. I thought my husband was special, I thought we were special. I thought we were like soul mates with this insane connection and never in a million years did I ever worry that he would do this. It makes me angry that I know we were having a hard time but I thought we would get past it and move on. He was too scared to talk to me, to insecure to tell me how he felt or what I wasn't giving him that he risked our marriage and family. It just infuriates me that he thought an affair was the easier less messy way to deal with things. I'm just really mad that he didn't handle things the way I would have. And it's not really fair maybe but I would never cheat on him. I had an attraction to one of his friends but I felt awful about it and only tried to figure out how to stop it. Sometimes I feel superior to him but not for long and then I feel worthless and ugly and undesirable because if I had been better looking or something, maybe he wouldn't have strayed and I know that is ridiculous but I feel half crazy all the time anymore. Anyway, thank you everyone for reaching out and I'm glad there are people that care but I hate that we are going through this at all.

deleted_user 04/22/2013

I feel half crazy a good amount of the time also! Sometimes I just want to tell myself f***in get over it already!!! I'm sure he would like to say that to me! But it's just trying to get past the hurt. And NO H definitely didn't do it the way I would have dealt with it! I was just saying to him that during this time that he was doing this his Staff SGT was coming over to the house when he wasn't home hitting on me and complementing me and everything else and all I ever did was tell him he needed to leave. He knew I was married and I wasn't about to cheat on my H! It felt good to be getting attention from someone since my H was always gone, never getting home until 4am every night and we NEVER had sex! Plus I had just had a baby so I wasn't feeling so great about myself anyway, and he made me feel good, but I would have NEVER cheated on my H! And here he was the whole time creating this ridiculous fling w/ a stripper! I don't regret not cheating on him at the time b/c that would have just made his A seem ok...which is was not! I go back and forth with blaming myself. Even though I know I had no part in it, it had nothing to do with me. It didn't matter how pretty I was, attractive, sexy, available, comforting, loving, or anything else. He made his choices based on his own self. There was nothing I could do to stop what he was doing outside of our marriage. I did what I could at the time, I begged him not to go, I would go to the bar and try and drag him out of there, I would try to be sexy, I would try to be more open sexually, I took excellent care of him when he was home, and I took excellent care of our children. Whatever he was dealing with was inside him and there was nothing more I could do for him. I try to make sense of it, but he can't even make sense of it for himself so how am I suppose to make sense of it for me?

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