SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My wife had an affair 3 years ago. We have a 16 and a 14 year old.   Married almost 20 years, I am 45 and inescapably still totally shattered. I've lost friends in the battlefield. I've dealt with extremely difficult situations but I do not know how to handle this. The memory is still as hurtful now as it was all those years ago. She was remorseful. Treated me like a king all over these years. She has confessed immediately and did everything right to help me heal. She has deleted her FB, messengers, got rid of all social media, everything has been cut off, all and every contact, went immediately NC. Passed a polygraph and we DNA tested the kids. Full transparency with phones, e-mails, Bank accounts, money, everything. She's still in IC and group therapy and spending every waking hour with me either at home (SAHM) or at the business (to help me). She's still getting up every morning before I do making everything ready for me. Doesn't accept any help with house cores (although I still help). Texts me throughout the day telling me where she is, that she misses me and that she loves and appreciates me. She still makes notes and sometimes writes heartfelt letters. She really tries to make it up to me. I really think that she did everything in her power to make me believe she loves, wants, respects and appreciates me. And she's also very creative and proactive with regularly planning and taking time out of our daily activities to spend quality time together and improving our marriage. It has been going like this for 3 years so I don't think she fakes it. It is very sincere and authentic. She made a turnaround of 360 degree in her life. She truly made me now the center of her life. She was awesome in this process.

I truly believe her but it still gets only worse and worse for me. We did not part our ways after her infidelity, but I bitterly regret not showing her the door. I betrayed myself. I am very successful. I'm running a big business. I am good looking and I am also in a good shape.   I've been always faithful to her or any other women prior to meeting her!   I was always loyal to all the women in my life and of course throughout all of my married life to my wife. And I will always be! I had countless opportunities but never once was I tempted to cheat on her. I never gave her a reason to be jealous or suspect anything. I can get any woman I want. I just don't know why I'm still here. I’m still haunted by that god awful affair and the mind movies of her being drunken giving herself to another man screwing my wife like a cheap whore in some dirty place (I'm sorry for the graphic description). The more I stay with her the more I hate her. I fake this everything and treat her well. I've worked hard on myself to keep us together. I don't say anything about the affair anymore. I don't scream, yell or shout. I don't throw anything in her face. We go out on dates, vacations, we hug, we kiss, we smile, I buy her gifts, make her feel important, appreciated, loved and so on but it is a lie. It's not what I'm feeling. I consider us succesfuly reconciled. We're getting along! Even very good! So, good that we seem to be the perfect couple! But that's all. I lost my spontaneity; I lost all joy of life. I think I have most likely built up a wall of apathy and resentment which helps me to deal and suppress my true feelings. I need to be numb to stay with her so this is why I'm doing this. I don't know how I could otherwise do what I'm doing. But it's hell. It's terrible. And I'm suffering. I'm sure it will never be the same love that I always had for her. That love went down the drain.

When we have sex it's a nightmare. With the time I learnt to just function so I can please her. I see it as being a kind of unpaid gigolo. I make it all about her. I make her climax, give her the best time she needs and afterwards come as fast as possible to end it and get away from her. She tries and wants to reciprocate my efforts, to make the sex about me too, but I don't let her, I manage to keep it that way. I hate myself for giving her that pleasure! I hate myself for not being able to stop it right there after her climax. I hate seeing her happy face all over the time. I let her fall asleep and cry myself asleep afterwards.   I'm exhausted, tired of pretending that I love her and I am still bitterly angry about her affair. Time doesn't heal anything and I have no peace (of mind). I just learned to suppress it. I never was like that, but have become now a master of suppression. Her affair changed me and that's depressing too. I am obsessed with it; I think about her affair on a daily basis and about how she disrespected me. It has been now entrenched into my thinking. I am afraid it will become part of who I am. I didn't want to stay but did it anyway. I know it was a deal breaker. And yet I'm here. Unable to break that deal! Those were the kids. the pressure (to stay). My parents! The in-laws! The finances! Yet, I'm tired. I'm sick. Counseling for me and MC hasn't done anything. It's just not enough. I'm not finding the answers that I need. She doesn't konw anything. I don't want to blow her world apart. I want to know why. Why do I need to stay?   Why should I continue? What are the reasons that I need to reconcile? How do I make it. Other opinions are also appreciated. What can you advise? Any help would be appreciated! I'm sorry.

[This message edited by MrSpock at 5:30 AM, January 15th (Friday)]

I can tell you from my experience that I hold on to the anger to keep myself from being vulnerable again. From what you've shared it seems as though your anger is a protective shield for you as well. Perhaps it is time to try a different counselor. For me, finding out about my husband's cheating was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. His betrayal brought all of my protective walls down. It has made me deal with all of the past trauma in my life. Once I found out my "safe" place (my marriage) hadn't been, it blew my world apart. In my case; I found out years after the fact. But the mind movies, nightmares and "how could he?" thoughts assaulted me constantly. It truly sounds as though you are dealing with PTSD. Have you seen a counselor who specializes in this? Reading about affairs they why's and the how's as well as my husband really changing helped, but it has been reading here and going to counseling that saved my sanity.

In the I can relate section there is a betrayed menz thread that may be helpful to you. The men there have all been in your shoes and might be able to offer some really good insights.

My best advice to you is to start to tear down your walls. We build them up thinking they will protect us, but they only serve to isolate us; making us feel even more disconnected and alone.

Keep reading and posting here. Whether you ultimately successfully reconcile (where you are happy too) or choose separation or divorce, there is support here.

Of course you don't need to reconcile! And feeling as you do, it sounds like it's killing you. If your wife knew of your feelings, it'd probably kill her too---she likely wouldn't WANT you to stay when you're so miserable, if she's truly remorseful.

It's totally OK that the affair is a dealbreaker for you.

Dude, a lot of that sounds like you might be fighting depression. Are you in IC?

Look at it this way, you gave her a fair shake which is more than she could have asked for . Ultimately you could not get over it, it's a horrible consequence of her actions.

Or you could continue to lie to yourself for the next thirty years and accept this as the new reality

Hi, MrSpock, welcome to SI. So glad you found us.

Infidelity causes trauma, it is emotional abuse, and sometimes takes years to move through it. I am ten+ years out from my husband's affair and still feel the sting, not as strong as it was, but it's still there and can creep up when I least expect it. Infidelity is life-changing, and whether you stay or go, it will always be there in one way or another.

Infidelity can also cause PTSD. Many of the members here have suffered with it, including myself. There is a specialized therapy called EMDR that you might want to try. It has been very beneficial to those dealing with the pain of infidelity years later.

One of the above posters mentioned the Betrayed Menz thread in the I Can Relate forum. There's a group of great guys who have lived through this nightmare and have come out on the other side.

Sometimes infidelity is a dealbreaker, and that's ok. You cannot worry about the inlaws, finances, etc. You are dying a slow death, and you need to take care of yourself for your mental and physical health. Have you contacted an attorney to find out what your options are?

For some of us, infidelity is a deal breaker.

Period.

You tried for 3 years. It ain't happening for you.

I don't think you're depressed at all. I think you've just finally come to terms with your own truth and you can't keep pretending anymore.

I'll give you credit. Three years was a long time to try when you knew it was a deal breaker for you right from the start.

Good luck to you.

Sorry my man

What you are descibing is the exact reason why many men, including myself never entertained the R senario. Its the mind games, the feeling that you are less of a man for allowing your WW to get away with it by not having to pay the ultimate price.

As you stated it was a dealbreaker for you and you went against your principles. You had something precious taken away from you, when it was returned it wasn't precious any more.

I feel for your wife if you do decide to D much like I did mine. However you did not create the situation, your WW did and as such the breakup of the marriage if it comes to pass sits squarely on her shoulders.

I am not pushing you to D your wife. As you stated she has made every effort to right your marriage, but it takes two and if you arent in it then there is only one and thats not a marriage.

[This message edited by notanotherchance at 6:22 AM, January 15th (Friday)]

I consider us succesfuly reconciled.

dude, you wrote yourself you are not living authentically to how you feel

gently = you are not reconciled. Stuffing that mess in a box is not the same as healing...

YOU are hiding all of this from your wife, so how can you consider yourself reconciled when you are so not healed? You wrote of your resentment and your hatred and you clearly have not forgiven yourself for staying = which by the way is far more admirable than cutting and running IMO

Picture it's like you've been the passenger in a car wreck and were seriously damaged as a result. Are you gonna do the therapy after the casts come off to learn to walk again, or are you gonna just "live" with crippling injuries translated as turning into bitter??

When you two have sex it's a nightmare = why are you willing to put up those walls with her in such a sacred place???

That you don't let her please you is HUGE = and the only way through at this point is as I see it for you to start poking at those walls, man

I get how deeply hurt = but there can be no healing if the shtick is all about "I am an island" routine and you seem to have completely enclosed into a "never vulnerable again" world that now all these years later is recognizing that yep, it's lonely in there...which I totally get not wanting to be hurt again as I wouldn't wish this pain on my worst enemy. My best friend, my confidant, my lover my soul-mate choosing to rip me stem to stern,yank my heart out, replace it with a viper, and then stomp all over everything saying sorry I have a fear of snakes... yah, just sucks

I echo the depression but seriously at this point IC and be OK that opening the box will be painful at first, but that is the only way back to what IS ALWAYS IS and real authentic LOVE

peace as you process and here is to hoping you tear down the walls (hence my reading why you called yourself a "spock") and building that bridge to your emotional self

heck, you have an excuse to see Inside Out? I love it when a kids' movie can speak to our own inner child... The way back to home is not by giving the controls over to anger, disgust and fear = keyboard gets frozen. The way back to intimacy is when joy values the ability of sadness to transform our vulnerability

just sayin' no pain = no gain

[This message edited by Merida at 6:45 AM, January 15th (Friday)]

Why do you think you stay? Have you sat with your counselor and tried to figure that one out?

I don't want to blow her world apart. I want to know why.

I don't know either...but it kind of sounds like you still love and care about her.

So it makes me wonder. Are you keeping that wall up because of your wounded pride? Or because you are afraid of being hurt again? It sounds like you are one of the lucky ones with a truly remorseful spouse. There's no time limit on how long it takes us to get over this (and I don't think we ever truly get completely over it), but after a few years, it comes down to this:

1. You can leave. You can decide that you will never get past this and you don't want to try anymore and you can leave. You aren't doing her any favors if you know you will never love her again or allow her in. However, this does not mean you do not have to work on yourself to heal. Sometimes leaving seems easier, but even after we leave, we are still wounded and it still takes work to heal that woundedness so we can become whole again. For some people though, this is the only option and that is okay.

2. You can stay but keep your walls up. However, this way you both get punished.

3. You can try to rebuild your relationship and make it stronger and better than before. Because infidelity strips us bare and exposes all of our vulnerabilities, if we do have a truly remorseful spouse and the betrayed partner can find a way to forgive (but not forget) the brokenness that caused the betrayal, some partners are able to rebuild a much stronger and more intimate relationship than ever.

#1 is the way I went with my WS who brought me to this site. He wasn't remorseful though...he continued to lie, I realized I could never trust him, so I left. It has taken years of hard work though to heal from that trauma and I still have some wounds that show up from time to time.

#3 is what I am doing now. I have a truly remorseful SO. We both put in a lot of hard work because he realized right away that he did not want to lose me and came clean. He has put in all the effort. He is in counseling. We read "Not Just Friends" together and discussed every page (it took us months) but that helped us both open up to each other on a deeper level than I ever believed and now when I trigger, he is very understanding and holds me or does whatever I need him to do. This is honestly the best relationship I have ever had, but it has taken SO MUCH WORK! And I have had to slowly allow myself to open up again. I don't completely trust him yet, and that will take a long time. But I know I am getting a stronger partner and for me, I really don't want to start over with someone else. We've gone through too much together at this point and we are emotionally closer than I ever thought possible...that takes a lot of time and effort to build and I don't want to lose that.

Only you can make the decision for what is best for you. I think you have to look really deep inside to figure out what is stopping you from opening up again and what is stopping you from leaving. Once you have the answers, you will know better which path to take.

ETA: I just saw the above post...and I forgot...if you do decide to stay and work on this, you do have to let her know about your resentments and feelings, and she has to be able to deal with those feelings in a constructive way. That is crucial for rebuilding if that is the path you choose.

[This message edited by NaiveAgain at 6:43 AM, January 15th (Friday)]

Mr. Spock...that was probably one of the most hard-hitting, sincere, and pull-no-punches analysis of the effects of affairs that I've ever read...and some great defense as to why R can't always work...

I think had my ex wife not left, and wanted me to forgive and pursue R, I would have mirrored your feelings to the T...from the disgust of the fake sex to the daily resentment...

Once you make toast, you can't go back to bread

I want to know why. Why do I need to stay? Why should I continue?

oh and I didn't address this end question

because you need to answer

Who are YOU?

Why are you here?

Where are you going?

Sorry if I implied you have to stay. You wrote you have a truly remorseful spouse who is doing you believe all that she can do so I wrote from the perspective to give yourself back your power

YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM (not shouting, just emphasis)

You don't have to stay... BUT in order to be healthy and integrated and a whole complete SELF you do (hopefully) want to do the work to heal = for YOU

IMO you right now are not a great catch and here is why = you are hiding. You are not being much of a partner with your spouse. So fine, you D and you still suck at intimacy. NOT marriage material

sorry to be blunt. But I was there 20 years ago with who I thought was just a "diamond in the rough" and a great guy who got stuck in a shitty situation trying to do his best... no = my broken attracted to his broken and so here we are in the NOW trying to wake the heck up to reality and authenticity. I thought we were married but my Mr. Spock just got real good at hiding and stopped growing. Please do not think D will automatically lead to a better life as the other posters have mentioned = regardless of R or D you are wounded. IMO you have not done the work to heal so regardless of which path, let it be toward God/The IS that just IS/your true SELF and know

truth sets you free

peace as you process, brother

merida wrote:

dude, you wrote yourself you are not living authentically to how you feel

gently = you are not reconciled. Stuffing that mess in a box is not the same as healing...

YOU are hiding all of this from your wife, so how can you consider yourself reconciled when you are so not healed? You wrote of your resentment and your hatred and you clearly have not forgiven yourself for staying = which by the way is far more admirable than cutting and running IMO

I just wanted to echo this. You are living as big a lie as any that your wife ever told you. Not as bad a lie, but certainly every bit as big. And lies will dominate your life if kept inside. You will end up orbiting them. You need to let this out.

You need to share this with your wife. She's your partner. You're not doing either of you any favors right now. A key recovery/prevention technique for armoring against infidelity and building a strong marriage is transparency, and you are being opaque.

If and when you do share your inner state with your wife, you need to pause before you start and ask yourself the question, am I getting ready to manipulate her, or am I going to communicate with her? Because there is a big, big difference between the two, and you want to communicate. Manipulating is a continued lie.

She probably respond immediately with her own life in mind, that can't be helped. But keep communicating with your partner.

I didn't think about my wife's affair for a good 25 years, and then due to a perfect storm of events, it came back up. I did what you are doing, just ate it inside, for a couple of years. Mistake. When I communicated with her that the past was present and it still bothered me, I felt released and there was truth in our relationship again, and she could help. All good.

Finally, know that what you feel is normal. The odds are tough in your situation. The majority of men divorce their wives when they are the BS, either immediately or after a few years when they realize its the new reality.

This I know for sure. Something has to change. You can cut your losses short and start anew (but there is no absolute clean break, especially with kids). You can dig, dig, dig on the what and why that it eats you up (hint: you are defending your SELF) and strip that away, or you can go negative and become a toxic force in your and everyone's lives around you. The one thing you can't do is reverse time and get a different past. Sorry, my friend.

Sending strength! Keep posting, there are hundreds of BTDTs to help pull you along.

When I allow myself to focus on the loss of "special" I feel exactly as you expressed in your post.

My WS really messed up. I will always think about this and there will always be a stain on our marriage....But then I realize that I tend to put too much worth on the special and not enough on the REAL things that matter....growth, maturity, learning, and doing better. Life isn't about never screwing up or being pure without fault.

There are many ways we disappoint each other and fail. It's what you do AFTER failure that really shows what you are made of. I try to focus, not on my WH's failure, but on his growth and changes in the wake of that failure. That is where respect is building again. I stayed because he deserved another chance. A chance to prove he is better than his worst moments. I don't feel that is weak and I would never be ashamed or mad at myself for showing love and compassion. I would however be ashamed of petty, vengeful, spiteful actions that lessen who I am.

I also realize that I have to heal this pain whether I stay or D. It is my journey to let go of the anger and resentment that his failure put in my heart. And there are no guarantees...if I found someone new, they could fail in the same way. I actually have a great deal of confidence that my WH has done the growth needed to be a man of integrity and a safe partner. If your WW is how you describe, I would say you are safe letting down your walls.

I agree with other posters that you seem to have some PTSD and could possibly be helped by EMDR therapy (I did it). Even if it's not PTSD, you need to address your fear of vulnerability and why you are holding on to resentment. Even if you leave....you will still be carrying it. With a new relationship you will wonder if this new person is capable of infidelity. You cannot un-know what you now know about infidelity. Even good, loving people can be tempted because of flawed thinking, selfishness, low self esteem, etc.

I hope you will begin to dig inside of yourself to address your fears and root out resentment. I hope you can begin to embrace your higher self and focus not of the failures but the successes of your WW.

Mr. Spock, what were the details of you finding out?

You don't need to stay at all. What you need is to end the betrayal of yourself as you described. You are making her important at the loss of your own importance. If you are afraid of being alone you should know there are many good women in the world who would not betray you who would appreciate a good faithful honest man.

Your wife destroyed your marriage. You are not obligated to rebuild what she destroyed.

The BS's I now who divorced are all much happier 3-4 years later than they were BEFORE they knew about the A. Divorce is hell but there is an end point to the hell.

If the A was a dealbreaker, no amount of reading or therapy is going to change that fact. It's like trying to convince yourself that grass is blue and the sky is green. Part of you will never stop telling you that you are living a lie. This hell will not change for you. You have to change it.

For your own sanity. See a lawyer and move to file. Move forward. Take some real time to heal. You may find a future that includes her in some way, you may not. but it should be on your terms, something you choose, not something in which you feel trapped.

MrSpock,

You've already received a lot of solid insight. If I may add to it: in the wake of her affair, you did so much for everyone else. Your wife, the kids, your family, hers, etc. What did you do for yourself? Going through IC or MC with the goal of just getting past it is nice, but it hasn't helped. Did you give yourself time to grieve for the marriage you had? Did you rant and rave and let out the anger and hurt and pain? Did you cry and show her your pain? Does she know how badly you were hurt by her actions and what it has cost you? Your doubts and fears? Because if not, then the work she has done, while very admirable, was addressing the wrong problem. She was working on your marriage instead of working on you. And you need to heal yourself. It sounds like you haven't. That since she did everything right post the affair, you've swept all your feelings and emotions under the rug. Frankly, you haven't reconciled.

I've had a lot of difficulty opening up to my wife post DDay. Then, the wonderful folks here at SI kicked me in the ass and rightfully told me I needed to communicate, communicate, communicate and break down those walls I built up if I want to even have a shot at a successful reconciliation. They are 100% correct. It's hard. Hardest thing I believe I've ever done. But I started. You need to start to.

So, what do you want? If you want to remain married and keep you family unit together, change your IC and work on opening yourself up. Communicate with your wife. Express yourself. Share what you're going through. Yes, it will be hard on her. But she's got to know it's not all roses with the two of you now. Let her in. Tell her why. Decide if you want her help in working on it. And above all, communicate, communicate, communicate.

Best of luck.

-W

It doesn't matter if she has done everything right and everything in her power to make this up to you. It doesn't matter that she caters to you like she does now.

It's still perfectly reasonable to not be enough. It doesn't make you greedy, it doesn't make you ungrateful.

Why do you silence yourself? Why can't you be authentic? Are you protecting her from your anger and disgust or are you protecting yourself from her response to your anger and disgust? Or anyone else's?

Aside from the actual cheating, you continuing on this way is no different than the lie your wife was living before dday. I'm not saying that as some sort of, you should be treating her better than she treated you point. But rather you should be treating YOURSELF better than she treated you.

You are letting yourself down if you aren't living authentically. What were the reasons you uncovered in IC for your motivations to do this? Or were you not honest with your therapist too? And if you didn't share this in IC how could you say it didn't help?

This is NOT reconciliation. It's really maddening that you call it successful yet can't be genuine. How could you even believe that's what successful means?

Do better for yourself. Stop pretending.

I was in a somewhat similar situation. After I graduated college, my wife and I moved thousands of miles away from where we lived (and where we were both from) so I could get a job that involved my major. However, she absolutely hated it where we moved to, so to try to make her happy, I tried to find another job that was closer to our hometown and her family. While I was looking, we agreed that she would move back in with her parents so she could start lining up a place to live when I got a job offer. Of course, I didn't know that when she went to her parents, she started an affair with another guy. She strung me along until I did find a job, and just after we moved, she told me about it. She said it wasn't sexual, but there was "kissing and touching".

Needless to say, I already was in a bad spot, because I dropped out of high school and busted my ass to get my original job offer (bad location, but awesome work there). She said she wanted to stay with me. So I rugswept to try to keep the status quo. That was my biggest mistake, as she was still talking and sending nude pictures to this guy for 6 months after our "reconciliation". I didn't find out about the extent of her communication with this guy until well after we separated. DDay happened in late 2009 by the way.

Fast forward a few years. I spent years being numb, and it seems the passion of our marriage went away. We had a kid in 2010, so I thought it was just the parenting thing. I even remember around 2012 or so, I told her that our relationship felt empty, and that we should consider divorce, but I just chalked that up to depression and stuck around.

I was in a deep existential depression basically all of 2014, and probably longer than that. In early 2015, she says she wants out, ILYBNILWY, etc. It wasn't until June that I find out that she had another guy lined up, and the extent of her relationship with the first guy.

This is long winded, I know, but after she said she wanted out, I was beating myself up, thinking that I tried everything to make her happy and it still wasn't good enough, so it must be a personal failing on my part. I suffered from depression for years, some of it due to my shitty upbringing, and some of it due to the cheating. I'll tell you what, though, after I found out why she REALLY wanted out, everything turned around. I'm still working through the anger of her betrayal, but I've found I enjoy life and my job a lot more. I don't take my self-loathing out on my son anymore. I'm much happier not being in that situation, which all started with that toxic resentment.

Please don't make yourself suffer any more. You did nothing wrong. For you own sake, I think you should leave. It's scary, I know. I was scared too. And worrying about the kids and how they will react is another concern. But let me tell you, even though doing the 50/50 custody with an autistic child can be difficult, he's in a better spot now that I am in a better spot. Your kids will adjust and adapt, and after the initial shock, will also be in better spots because you're in a better spot. As for your wife, well, she fucked up, and now she has to reap what she sowed.

[This message edited by digitaldrifter at 9:09 AM, January 15th (Friday)]