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We've been trying to repair for about a year but some of the most hurtful details only came out roughly 3.5 months ago after the AP shared some hand written letters and screenshots of their conversations with me :( A lot of what came to light was he showed her some version of care and affection in the same ways he did with me. So what once felt unique, special and romantic now just hurts... a lot. He claims it was mostly transactional, that there were some level of feelings there but nothing in comparison, he doesn't remember writing or doing any of these things, they meant nothing and he just did it because he felt like he had to or was supposed to to keep her desire of him going etc etc. But it just feels like a piece of me died and what once felt good will never return. I know he loves me, he wouldn't have stayed through this past horrendous year if he didn't... but I guess my question is... do these things ever feel good again?

An example from the past few days: My neck and shoulders have been hurting, I often sleep on it wrong, and he used to massage these areas for me and it was one thing I loved about him because it felt like care/love/affection. In a letter she shared that he hand wrote (which he also does for me often) was commenting on how he bought her a massage because she deserved a moment of relaxation and how it would likely be better than the ones he gives her. It's small in the grand scheme of things but it crushed me. This didn't show 'transactional sex' this showed care, affection, intimacy. When he offers to help me it just gives me the ick, I feel disgusted and I don't want to be touched. I of course don't tell him this but I just pray one day it will hurt a little less and that moments like these can return without it feeling like some brief moment where I felt disposable/replaceable etc. I've done the work, I don't feel replaceable or disposable any more but it doesn't stop these moments of me missing what once was, wanting again a version of what I had without the stain of it feeling like 'he just does this for anyone'.

Why don't you tell him how you feel? It's makes perfect sense. If he's truly remorseful, he'll understand.

For me, after 11+ years, that specialness hasn't come back. In a lot of ways, intimacy with my H after Dday became transactional for me. I felt nothing emotionally when we had sex. It was all about me getting off, nothing more.

My H wrote me poems when we were dating. He even had them framed. They were very special to me until I found a poem he wrote to the OW. Now, they mean nothing. I don't even know if we still have them. He gave me some special workout socks. I loved them! Then, I found out he had given her workout socks, too.

Nothing that my H does feels special or unique or exclusive to me, anymore.

@wiser this is absolutely one of the worst parts of infidelity IMO and I feel the same (2 and a half years out).

I said to my WH very early on in the process, nothing we do will ever feel special again. A cute I Love You message - not special, holding hands - not special, a massage, not special. Nothing!!!

And as for sex I agree with Coco, all transactional for me now. When if/he try’s to hold me after I just role over and go to sleep. In fairness the sex is actually better for me now because I’m super selfish and make sure my needs are always taken care of 😂

He claims it was mostly transactional, that there were some level of feelings there but nothing in comparison, he doesn't remember writing or doing any of these things, they meant nothing and he just did it because he felt like he had to or was supposed to to keep her desire of him going etc etc.

Hi Wiser, sorry you joined the club.
Be strong, we hear you, we were there, you are not alone.

From a guy perspective. This may partially be true.
Not my cake, when I had transactional sex with women I was clear about it from the start. It's just fun, take it or leave it, but I am a bit of an outlier, I wanted transparency and was cool if the girl bailed out.
But I obviously have friends, other guys, and it is pretty common way to "secure engagement" from the girl (so they won't bail out like with my approach) to give her some fake emotional connection. Pillow talk or the like.

Partially though. And I say this because it was an affair, the chemical of the affair will resemble romantic love (it is not, is self centered 99% of the time, but the brain chemistry is identical), so it was possibly in part transactional and intentional. Your gut is very likely right, there were emotions involved too, chemistry, but he believed it at the time.

But it just feels like a piece of me died and what once felt good will never return.

I feel you and know your pain. I just found out that my girl was having an affair that started right after we got together and lasted her entire year abroad (our earliest time of our long distance relationship).

Those days were the ones I still treasured about us, the special time with my girl when she should have been the most in love. Well guess jokes on me, I was delusional and an idiot, I just was the official boyfriend while she was spending the rest of time with this guy (but when I visited).

So yes, that part dies and is likely the most painful.

ALready the good parts post her 2008 betrayal and short term replacement with her affair partner died and never came back to me.
Now even the most treasured memories, those of a fresh love, are tainted.

I share your feeling, they will likely never come back. And I miss those deeply.

When he offers to help me it just gives me the ick, I feel disgusted and I don't want to be touched.

As I understand you are trying the road of salvaging your relationship.

The ICK is a very, very bad thing, I have been through it myself.
If there was something we had since the start was physical and emotional intimacy. Not just good sex, but also that mutual need of touching, cuddling, caring for each other bodies, I loved giving her massages or caress her hair, holding her etc.

In 2008 she has her relationship ending affair, sex with a fat rat, break up with me then comes back.

Since her comeback of course she tried to restore physical intimacy.
I got the ICK right from the start, I had sex with her and wanted to vomit right in between and after. It is horrible, and the cognitive dissonance between desire and disgust is devastating for you. (I do not know how much the Wayward Partner gets it, I made sure I hided it, but I suppose she felt it was "different" I just wanted to get it over as quick as possible).

It will get worse, we went from having intimacy couple of time a day into a 17 years of mostly sexless and minimal physical contact relationship. And the cognitive dissonance ate me alive, I felt shame of myself for feeling this way, even started to neglect myself to keep her far and avoid her to initiate anything.

If you feel the ICK you need to consult with a therapist immediately. The thing I can tell you is that it can go away, better to catch it earlier with therapy than showing it under the carpet like I did, because is bad for the couple as in potentially ending, and above all is bad for you, it will haunt you more than your partner.

Please don't do my mistake.

I just pray one day it will hurt a little less and that moments like these can return without it feeling like some brief moment where I felt disposable/replaceable etc. I've done the work, I don't feel replaceable or disposable any more but it doesn't stop these moments of me missing what once was, wanting again a version of what I had without the stain of it feeling like 'he just does this for anyone'.

It depends on your character, from what I learned it will hurt less and it is possible to restore and reconcile the relationship with your cheating partner to a good level, where you can possibly be happy.

It will never go back to before, that relationship is dead, tainted, you will never feel the same with this person (likely, perhaps someone does, but if they exist they are exceptions, generally it does never go back).

But you can be happy again, in a new relationship, different, in some aspect better and more respectful, in the romantic aspects worse because the cheater killed the romance. It's a tradeoff, for many is worthy to stay.

It will hurt less. Whether you reach this new happiness through work and reconciliation or like in my case, definitive detachment, the pain will be less.
IT even disappears.

For me is only coming back when I revisit those events, like when I pass by here. But each time you understand it better, it solidfy your inner self, and will make you more resilient to the pain.

One day you will feel it, but you will fear it no more.

I hope you will keep your path to healing and you will have a shot to be happy again.

Man hearing these few responses feels so sad. I agree, for me now there is a lot that just feels transactional. I stay because I want our family to stay together, he shows incredible remorse and a desire to grow, and I know he truly loves me despite his destructive actions. But I want to feel 'in love' on my end again and it just feels like he forever flushed that down the drain. I hate feeling like I'd have to leave to potentially find that feeling again and was hoping someone might chime in that it returns! There is too much good to throw it away for good, but it really bums me out that I no longer feel in love. It's so sad that someone isn't capable of seeing what they have until they cause irreversible damage. He's somehow happier with this shell of a person I am now than he was when I was happy and he had all of me. I'm now just focused on what makes me happy outside of him, and hope that one day the indescribable love I had for him will return, if even only a fraction of it.

I wasn't able to reclaim it. She said so many of the things to him that were copypaste things that I had said to her over the years.

I eventually mourned its loss and accepted this just wasn't something I could do anymore. It's one of the things that the adultery changed in me.

Sex was the worst of it. Sex went from something sacred and unique (I had only ever been with her), with deep emotional bonds, to just being something that's fun to do. More fun than anything and everything else,but still totally lost its personal and unique flavor and meaning. At this point, sex with any woman would likely produce exactly the same emotion: nothing much at all, just physical enjoyment.

I don't like it at all. But there's no point in being bitter. It's just one of those changes that happened in me that appears to be permanent -- 10 years or from DDay and, even though we could be said to be "reconciled," there is no apparent change in my attitude towards sex and types of affectionate displays. Things like this are just what I have accepted as changes in "who I am now" and I had to learn anew how to navigate who and what this whole process changed me into.

For me, the theft of romantic uniqueness or "specialness" is the one thing even 8 years out I still mourn. I am healed and happy again, but I’ve had to accept that he took that from me and I can’t get it back. Leaving for another man won’t achieve it since part of what I believed was so special and "us" was the family our love and union created. I can’t make that with another man so I’ve had to accept that a "soulmate" 🙄 or whatever you call it isn’t in the cards for me. I do love my husband. In love? Ehh… that ebbs and flows. When I get to thinking too much about that theft it helps me to count the blessings life has given me. I have so much to be thankful for and many of those blessings exist because of my marriage. A life long romance of exclusivity and uniqueness is just not one of them. Some people have that and I am sure it’s wonderful, but their life may not have the blessings I have. I’ve never met anyone who has it all. A faithful marriage with my soulmate just isn’t part of my story and I am okay with that. There isn’t another option.

Wiserself,

Your share here just tore my heart out. I read it last night, just before going to bed, and I’ve not been able to sleep. When the clock turned over the midnight hour I gave up and thought I’d try to add to what others have shared.

You are extremely early in the reconciliation process, and you will probably receive more information (trickle truths) that may derail the progress you and your husband have made. New details or new thoughts of imaginations, can be as devastating as the original D-day.

My suggestion is that you try not to think in terms of anything as permanent. Protect yourself yes but try not to see the things you are feeling and experiencing now as absolute. As with most betrayed spouses, I went through this horrible stage, and though being walled off did provide some safety, from all the harm my wife caused, it came at a different cost. But overtime that safety net became a blockade and I needed to decide, was that barrier between us, "that I created", still necessary.

You wrote:

But it just feels like a piece of me died and what once felt good will never return.

And:

But I want to feel 'in love' on my end again and it just feels like he forever flushed that down the drain. I hate feeling like I'd have to leave to potentially find that feeling again and was hoping someone might chime in that it returns!

I’m 33 years out from my D-day and I can assure you that, though tough and not always successful, if you allow it, those "feelings" you lost, I would suggest you stored away for self protection, can return. They probably will be different but just as satisfying. But it takes years, decades. I’m not saying that I never slip back in time and find myself struggling, I still do, though rare and not as intense. But my wife and I did allow ourselves and each other to redefine ourselves and our marriage and I’m deeply in love with her. She is my joy and it is my belief she feels the same way about me.

However, those deep feelings did not come about like they did 54 years ago. In the beginning love and trust just comes easily and naturally. My wife’s affair killed that innocence! (That is the only permanence I see in all of this.) If we were ever to have a chance, what was, in the early years, easy and natural, now was going to be a long, draining slog.

We both needed to decide, were we willing to put in the work and give each other a chance or separate and move on. Either choice is reasonable and both directions have their own hard work ahead of them with loses and benefits. If there is only one truth it is there is no escaping the pain that you and your husband are going through now, and I’d suggest even a greater pain that will have to be faced in the next 4 to 6 years. (For me, it took even longer, more like couple decades. But that was because we tried to go it alone and did not seek help. Costly mistake that I’d warn against.)

Wiserself, I had to give up the idea of trying to recapture what "I thought we had", for obviously we didn’t or the affair would never have happened. Our marriage was an illusion, not much different than her affair. Neither were authentic.

What I am suggesting by "neither were authentic" is that you have lost what you "thought" you had, not what you actually had. I am not suggesting that your "feelings" were not real or authentic only that what was "flushed down the drain" was probably only the illusion of what you thought you had and that is what needed to be flushed down the drain.

It is now that you both have the chance to create something authentic and loving, but it will not come fast nor easily. But it is attainable and there are many here that, even though scarred, have had success in rebuilding their love and trust for their wayward spouse, sometimes, such in my case, far beyond what it was when I was living in an illusion of what I thought our relationship was.

Keep writing and reaching out, the collective wisdom here is astounding and has helped me more than any counseling that I have paid big money to receive. The stories here are as varied as there are people here so lots of resources to pull from.

Asterisk

There is too much good to throw it away for good, but it really bums me out that I no longer feel in love. It's so sad that someone isn't capable of seeing what they have until they cause irreversible damage. He's somehow happier with this shell of a person I am now than he was when I was happy and he had all of me. I'm now just focused on what makes me happy outside of him, and hope that one day the indescribable love I had for him will return, if even only a fraction of it

.

Now let me be detached and give you a glimpse of light.

Your question was emotional so I wanted to answer you in the language of emotions.

I will be grounded now:

Why you feel the sense of loss?

The same emotions that made your bond special before the adultery are now mourning the loss of that very bond.
Betrayal trauma is different from other kind of trauma and pain, because it doesn’t add to your life, it takes away,leaving a void where the very pillars of your reality, now shattered, once stood.

Even the death and loss of your beloved ones adds to your life, is something that you always know you will face one day, it adds pain and you had time to treasure and cherish them, preparing for the goodbye and preserving their memories.

Cheating is the opposite, it takes away from you everything you had with that person. The present is gone, gone is the future you dreamt together, and gone is the past, forever tainted by the doubt of your partner dishonesty. You got nothing added, all taken away, that’s why you fall, the ground under your feet just got pulled away.

The bits and individual memories of love that you still remember, are now only shards, speck of dust of your shattered reality pillars, they still hold the emotional value that made you love, but is no longer structured, is just broken fragments of what used to be your life. And you don’t even know for sure is even these specks are truly pure or hide inside the rotten stench of betrayals that you still don’t know about, and are also terrified to ask and find out, because you know already that your man can take away even those ruins you still hold desperately.

And even not asking and not knowing isn’t any good, you’re already in the doubt they are lies, dust already that you desperately try keeping intact, so there’s no way out right now for your nerve system.

But.

This are the fears coming from the very same emotions that made up your attachment. It means that the past and present might not be necessarily a complete lie, that is your perception now. But it can change, you may get it back, at least in part.

And the way to is rebuilding trust. That is the only fix for salvaging the good you still treasure and fear of losing.

About your man:

You feel he is happier with the shell of a woman you are now.
This is very unlikely.

First of all you are not a shell of a woman, you are a hurt woman, in her deepest and most intimate recesses of her soul.

If he is truly remorseful he is a shell of a man. Because he failed you. Because he failed and betrayed himself when he betrayed you. Because he failed your bond, your family. He failed your future together. He failed your past and present.

An it was all on him, his choice to sacrifice it all on the altar of the other woman (most of the time a very shitty person) for a temporary rush of dopamine and self absorbed hedonism.

It’s self sabotage, now he doesn’t have the affair because he’s waking up to realizing it was never real, just a high like a drug for his low self worth and esteem. Now he lost that precious part of the woman he forever killed in you. Both are not coming back.

We pay for the cheating partner with pain, reality loss and trauma. But we can heal.
The cheater pays with a piece of their soul. They will never fully recover from that, because you can’t run away from yourself.

He can only learn to destroy the flaws that made him cheat on you. His loyal identity is dead as your love, he can’t come back to it, only work to rebuild a new, better one.

And he knows it, consciously or not.

And he can make amends to you only by proving himself worthy of you now.

He knows very well that you can leave and heal fully.
He knows that he can’t leave himself so he can never heal completely.

And you chose to stay, to give him a chance of redemption. This means that you had enough love in you to give him a chance for an abuse that should never deserve a second chance.

This means you loved him enough that you chose to keep your wounds open, the knife he stabbed you with forever lodged inside, rather than to throw him away like a crumpled up piece of paper, as he deserves and as he did to you when he cheated.

You chose to keep bleeding 🩸 to drag your wayward husband out from the mud and allow him to walk again at your side.

Knowing full well that you bleed because of him.

If he’s remorseful and truly feels guilt and desire to change, this might be the first time that he truly sees you, instead of seeing you through the lens of his unresolved issues, and he is realizing what a fucking awesome woman he has.

Because what you are doing is not weakness or cowardice.
What you are doing is bravery very few can ever pull off, and true interior strength.

He may seem to love you now, not because of what he destroyed and how he hurt you, but simply because he awoke to the woman you are and always were.

In the end can a fraction of the love you had come back?

Yes it can. Once you heal. Once he heals. When you rebuild trust and commitment.
Then you will know what memories you have still hold true love, and you can keep them. Then you can rebuild new memories, the foundation of something new that you can both stand on for the rest of your lives.

The shards of the betrayal will always be there in the basement of your story, sometimes you will step on them and they will make you bleed again. Both of you. But you will have a good bandaid 🩹 in your new relationship that will make it go away.

This is what many here achieved, something most definitely worth to look up to.

Some fail because they stuck with a unremorseful serial cheater or like me realized their entire love story was a lie and a one way only love.

This doesn’t look your case.
You can see how much of a change reformed wayward partners can make here, many users can bring their testimonies of how they became a whole person, a much stronger and more committed partner after their betrayal and their healing.

Your husband is flawed, not a monster, he can heal. And so will you.
You can make it.

WOW, BackFromTheStorm, beautifully and precisely stated! In my opinion, your response should be pinned at the top of the Reconciliation forum.