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Long short story, my husband cheating on me several times (only sexual relationships). I had a 6 months EA and 1 week PA and then confessed. I asked for a divorce but my husband says no, we can fix it.

A few weeks ago, I decided to try one last time for our child. The thing is, my husband doesn't want to talk about my affair. I'm trying to be open and discuss his feelings but he said he's fine and seems fine. When I confessed he was sad and cried a little but since then he's not showing many emotions. We are doing all the funny family things, BBQ, going out, it's like never happened.

The bigger difference it's the sex, he wants all the time. I believe he's experiencing HB. I'm going with it and I feel I owe him that (it's 100% consensual). After the sex I cry a lot, he holds me and says it's going to be ok.

Is this normal?

Hi there Girl123,

Welcome to SI.

It's hard to know what's going on in his head. He might be in shock and his feelings will start to come out as he processes them. He might be afraid to show anything but positive feelings because you asked for a divorce and is afraid to push you away if he shows anger or sadness. He might be rug sweeping. He might be feeling relieved and thinking that now you and he are the same since he cheated and you cheated so now the relationship has balanced.

I'm wondering what you think about that. Do you see his decision(s) to cheat and yours as the same? In your sig line you identify him as a WS but not as a BS or a MH. Do you blame him for your affair? Was it an exit affair and you got talked out of exiting?

As far as the sex goes I think you're probably right about the HB. Not every couple goes through it but it's pretty common.

Are you in counselling? Is he?

Welcome back Girl123! I'm glad you are posting again (and nice stop sign, there is no shame at all in using it).

Wanting sex all the time makes sense to me. It's probably some kind of reclaiming or making you his again. I think that's what HB often is.

But you won't know how he thinks about HB or anything else unless you talk about it, and not talking about your affair or his cheating is going to leave all the problems that led to the cheating unsolved. You can't make him talk. But you can keep working on yourself, going to IC, explaining how his cheating made you feel, explaining how important it is for you to heal your marriage etc. And you could put into place measures that make it clear what you might do if he OR you cheats again - a post-nup with full custody and all assets to the person who doesn't cheat.

Because of your choices in the past few weeks, your son gets to live with both parents for longer, maybe forever, and doesn't have to live with another man who is not his father. Thank God. You are a good mom, Girl123. Keep it up.

Thank you so much for your replies!

EvolvingSoul,

He did say that we both made mistakes and we could move on together now. I don't see our affairs as the same because he did several times, I can't imagine choosing to lie again and again. One of the biggest reasons I confessed it's because I couldn't live with the guilt. My husband never confessed, I found out everything on my on.

I didn't realize I put my husband as only WS, I wrote the sig line very fast, I will change now. I don't blame him for my affair, it was my choice but he blames himself. He said that it would never happened if he wasn't cheating before. I don't think it was an exit affair for me, but I can't be sure. I see that I met the right person in the wrong time and I have to live with the consequences.

I'm in IC, he doesn't want to go to counseling. He was open for MC (we did before) but as soon as I said I would try again he back of. I feel he wanted MC to convince me to stay.

Pippin,

I'm trying to talk to him about everything. His cheating, my cheating.. He just wants to move on. He a very racional man, it's like he just move on and forget about the rest. I don't think a post-nup is a option in my country and my husband wouldn't go for that. I would have full custody for sure because of his job and child support. There is no spouse support here.

My son is the only silver lining here. I'm trying for him. If we didn't have any kids I would be gone. I realize I have resentment against him, I feel he manipulated me every time I found out something inappropriate in his part.

About the sex, during is ok but I don't really feel good after. I feel used and that we shouldn't be doing it. Does anyone feel the same?

I'm working with my IC now but we talk more about my childhood, teenagers years... And it's been given me another perspective of my life.

It's possible he want to move on because of shame. Now that he's the betrayed spouse and feeling what it's like to be one, he may actually be triggered. In other words, he can now appreciate the pain you've gone through with each of his infidelities, which essentially is a reminder of who he is or has been and is uncomfortable to go there.

Additionally, him talking about it would set a precedent with respect to you also talking about your past betrayed spouse experiences which in turn causes him pain, not only from seeing your anguish, but also because he's the one that caused it. Hopefully I didn't come across to confusing here. I know what's in my head, but in limited time conveying it articulately may be a different matter :-)

I feel he manipulated me every time I found out something inappropriate in his part.

About the sex, during is ok but I don't really feel good after. I feel used and that we shouldn't be doing it.

Girl123, I think your challenges with sex might be more from a BS perspective than anything else... It’s not an enviable position to be in to have to discern this.

I can offer my experience as a WS in reverting to physical intimacy as a means to “treat” the pain of betrayal. I think THAT is what fuels the WS during HB- “Oh! This will reverse the emotional pain of betrayal! I’m making BS feel better, and I feel better too!” That is what HB feels like to me in hindsight. And I assume Pippin’s assessment of the BS motivations to be somewhat accurate, though that’s only a guess.

I started to worry about my motivations as I fell into old negative habits and HB gave way to more self-isolation. Had I articulated this to BS, I think we could have worked more holistically on reconnecting at a more meaningful level as we worked together. Instead, she sat wondering why we were having less sex again and fearing the future.

All that to say, if your BS feels “you’re even” but you don’t, that’s not his decision to make. I don’t know how you feel because I haven’t been betrayed, but I think this sensation regarding intimacy comes more from your experiences as a BS.

It sounds to me like you are sleeping with your husband as a kind of penance, an effort to just get on with the work of reconciliation. IMO, you aren't ready. And however the gavel may come down on a WW not being ready for sex (which is an explosive topic here on SI), most agree that a BW is completely justified in taking a time out from intimacy while considering the possibility of reconciliation.

What are you feeling when you cry after sex? Violation? Frustration? Hopelessness? Pining for AP? Something else you can't name?

I can speak to this as a MH myself. I think when you're the one to cheat after a serial cheater has devastated you, it's not quite the same recovery on the WS scale as it is for the original cheater, if that makes sense. You're a BS and might not have been a WS in other circumstances. That just makes sense. That doesn't mean that your cheating is okay or excusable. It just means that your recovery isn't going to look like it would for the original cheater. You have so much healing to do as a BS that it will likely overshadow the WS part for a good long while.

This is why an RA sucks. You wind up complicating everything after infidelity. I stayed and tried to R 99% because I'd freaked out on DDay and cheated back. It made me feel so low as a person that it kept me with a serial cheater and that was not okay. Not at all okay. His crimes and mine were not equal, but it gave him something to grasp onto as something awful I did to him. It hurt him deeply and made him more ashamed of what he had done, but it didn't fix a darned thing.

Why are you with him trying to R? Is it related to the guilt from your own RA?

WS only

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:45 AM, June 3rd (Monday)]

Jorge,

I understood what you were saying. He doesn't want to talk about his infidelities, he said he doesn't want to see me sad because of them anymore.

JBWD,

I think you're right. I'm a BW and I'm still acting like it. The problem is, he's the BH now. And I have to do anything that I can to help him with his pain. He's not showing the pain to me, but it's more about his personality. He's more the racional type and he doesn't want to talk about the problem, just fix it.

BraveSirRobin,

In a way you are right, I'm not completely sure about reconciliation but I'm doing my best shot for my son and our story together. We've been together for 9 years, (dating and marriage). He was the only family that I had and we used to be best friends too. But if he can have sex without emotion with other women it's possible that he's doing the same with me? I don't want to be just a body.

I feel mostly two emotions after sex. I feel Disconnect and I keep wondering if it's the right thing to do. I'm ashamed to say the other felling. I feel like I'm betraying my AP. I know it's not right and I'm trying to leave the fog like everyone keeps saying but I have to accept my reality. The other life that I dreamed about it with AP, it was just a dream and I have to move on.

DevastatedDee,

Thank you so much for your post, it makes so much sense. I'm trying again for the reasons I told before, mostly our son.

Beachwalker,

I was able to read your post before it was deleted. I know I choose to put the stop sign because I'm afraid of being attacked, but I also see that I'm loosing good advice because of it.

My husband said some things like you. During the sex he asks me to speak, we never did that before, it's mostly about who are you/ who am I and I'm supposed to answer. He's being doing some dirty talk with a lot of the word belong too. It's a little Tmi now but he's been leaving sex marks on my body as well. Please it's nothing abusive.

After when I'm crying, he's holding me and kissing my hair until I sleep. I'm feel more connected to him in this moment than when we are having sex. The sex is good, I just feel very confused.

I can't imagine how difficult my thread is for a BH, please my situation is different. He's cheating mess up our marriage and I messed up the rest.

You have so much healing to do as a BS that it will likely overshadow the WS part for a good long while.

This from DevastatedDee is I think the most relevant. While you say you need to be acting like a WS right now, I would counter that your BS/WS should also be acting like a WS since it seems that reconciliation didn’t really occur prior to your A.

As always, Linda MacDonald has thoughts on this- She acknowledges that that there needs to be time to address multiple As if there is a RA of any sort. But the problem becomes they can’t be addressed simultaneously. I failed with that with my BS’s ONS, and I used it to fuel a sense of vindication- Although I didn’t explicitly articulate the feeling that we were in some regard “even,” I believe I felt that way. And that allowed me to be selfish again.

I can’t speak for the prior actions of your WS, but it sounds like he feels similarly, and I wouldn’t advocate you abandoning working on processing his multiple As.

I have to do anything that I can to help him with his pain.

That’s true but once again that needs to be balanced with the work he may or may have done prior. I say that as someone who did what I described above, using an RA as ammunition to help fuel selfish behavior as opposed to doing the real work needed as a WS.

I feel mostly two emotions after sex. I feel Disconnect and I keep wondering if it's the right thing to do. I'm ashamed to say the other felling. I feel like I'm betraying my AP. I know it's not right and I'm trying to leave the fog like everyone keeps saying but I have to accept my reality.

Honesty is the best policy here. There may be BS who can't forgive you for it, and that's ok. They don't need to forgive you, and you don't need them to, either. You're doing really well at the hardest part: turning your back on those illusions and trying to work on your real future (regardless of whether it ultimately includes your madhatter husband). At least that future won't include a man who is already someone else's husband. If that hurts, and you miss the feelings AP gave you, well, you're human. There are all kinds of threads in multiple forums right now about how you can't just snap your fingers and feel better because of logic, or even from a desperate desire to get unstuck. Some things only heal with time.

My concern is that you don't feel pressured into rugsweeping, or sex, just because your H wants it. He doesn't get to decree how your recovery works, any more than you can dictate his. With madhatters (and I am one), there is an unusual level of compromise involved. You aren't going to fit into one-size-fits-all rules, other than the big ones of fidelity, honesty and transparency.

Thank you for the advice. I had a really emotional conversation with my husband about my feelings, the sex... He was very understanding. He said he never saw me as a body, that he just loves me and I'm his wife. And that's why he wants the sex now.

Honestly I don't think I deserve all this love right now. I read all the stories about WW that desperate want another chance but I don't feel this way and I feel guilty about it.

My husband suggested that we move, he can work from another city without a problem and I would quit my job and become a SAHM again. He wants us to try again for the big family that I always wanted. I don't know what to say. It seems great on paper but I don't feel it.

Thank you everyone, but it doesn't matter anymore. We just had another Dday and my marriage is over. I'm sorry for the people hoping for reconciliation but some couples don't make it. I regret even marring this person in the first place.

Oh Girl123, I am SO sorry! I was afraid of that, that he was taking your cheating in stride because he had never intended to stop cheating himself.

You have lots of healing to do as a BS. We're here for you.