Me: BS 62; She: FWS 63; Married: 40 years (HS sweethearts); D-Week: 03/01/2005 - 03/08/2005; 2 PAs and 2 EAs 04/2003 - 03/2005; R'd but it took a long time

20 years out - lasting impressions?

Today is the 20th anniversary of my DDay. Amazing!

I haven’t posted to or read anything on SI for about 10 years now. But, lately I’ve been thinking about my longer-term feelings regarding my wife’s affairs, and I thought I’d write down some of them.

Basically, I’m wondering if there are any long-timers out there, and if you have any reaction to these feelings/thoughts.
Does anything resonate?

For anyone newer to the reconciliation process, please keep in mind that these are my feelings and experiences, so don’t immediately think that this is how your reconciliation will go, or what you’ll be left with. Do the work with your partner to make your situation the best possible.

So, here goes…

1) I think about my wife’s affairs every day. I don’t obsess over it, but it just seems to show up daily. I hate this, but I’ve gotten used to it. I wish this wasn’t true, but no amount of initial counseling and good life events seems to prevent this. My lasting thought always seems to be "Why did this happen?"

2) I think our marriage suffered greatly due to the affairs. I know that there are many folks here who talk about how much better their relationship/marriage is once they reconciled. But, I feel like we lost something that we can never get back. We were HS sweethearts since 15, and were each other’s first/only lovers (even remaining abstinent until marriage), and I always thought those were special qualities that made our marriage rather unique. It feels like we lost that uniqueness somehow.

3) I can’t tell my wife "I love you". I’ll say it in response if she says it (which is uncommon), but I can’t initiate it. She said those words to one of her affair partners, and I never really got over learning that.

4) After all this time, I still trigger a little when watching movies or reading books with adultery-related themes. I can deal with some of it in a plot, but it can’t be the central theme – I won’t watch/read it. I think my wife knows this, though I haven’t mentioned it for a long time.

5) We haven’t talked about the affairs for about 15 years. My wife answered all of my questions in the beginning year(s), and there’s really nothing else to discuss. Even if it’s on my mind for whatever reason, I don’t bring it up, since I don’t think she would understand or want to discuss it.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a good life with my wife – we enjoy each other’s company very much, and we do many things together. We’ve been married for over 40 years and have wonderful kids and awesome grandkids.

Though it was hard at first, I stayed in our marriage because I could foresee (or hoped for) those good things in our future life together. I was definitely in the "fake it til you make it" camp, and the years just sort of rolled along. I just couldn’t predict how I would feel about the affairs 20 years later. Now I know…

14 comments posted: Saturday, March 1st, 2025