SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My BH has been asking since we got married just 7 months ago to be a priority. I haven’t been able to see or admit to myself how self absorbed I’ve been until he said that he feels nothing towards me and wants a divorce.
I have finally fully admitted to myself how awful of a person I have been. I had been interacting with a coworker and talking about being intimate, although we never were, the exchanges of intent was clear. I lied about the A for a month before he dragged it out of me and still a week later I couldn’t be totally be honest with him about an inappropriate interaction I had with my AP after Dday (11 days ago) until he asked me what else I was hiding. I am so ashamed and know I have to live with my decisions. He has no reason to trust me. I have sought out marriage therapists but he does not want to meet, I think he doesn’t see the point. I have been paralyzed on how to fix this and haven’t done enough to make him feel I’m worth it. I feel like I lost my way and I can be the woman he feel in love with but I don’t know if the hurt is too deep and how I could possibly make amends. My words are meaningless and hold no weight because I’ve been lying.

Has anyone survived this? I’m looking for any advice. How can I earn back trust?

You cheated during the honeymoon part of your brand new marriage. The kindest thing you can do is give him what he wants, without making this more difficult for him.

MC is something he isn't interested in,because the marriage didn't cheat. You did. You need therapy. He is right to avoid MC at this point.

inappropriate interaction I had with my AP after Dday (11 days ago)

You saw his devastation,and continued with the OM.

Listen to him. He wants out. Let him go.

[This message edited by HellFire at 2:51 PM, Wednesday, February 2nd]

Welcome to SI Seekinghelptoo,

Sorry you find yourself here and in this predicament. While I'd love to offer you words of comfort or encouragement regarding saving your marriage, I'm not sure that's really possible. The marriage isn't even a year in, and is already built on betrayal and lies. That's not the foundation of a healthy marriage, and you can't save what didn't really exist in the first place. I would instead encourage you to put your own health and well being first.

An affair is a symptom of a larger problem. For example, a person who drinks too much might get upset over the fact that they can't seem to hold a job. But their employment isn't the real problem, their drinking is. In a similar way, you need to figure out what is going on with YOU right now. The marriage failed because you were looking for happiness and fulfillment elsewhere. So the real question is... why? You had someone who loved you enough to marry you. And yet you turned tail and ran away, seeking out an unhealthy relationship with someone else instead. Maybe you feel unworthy of "real love"? Maybe you need a certain level of discourse in your life to feel "normal"?

Here's the thing. No one says to themselves, "One day, I want to marry the person of my dreams, and then cheat on them." And yet, here you are, here we all are. Infidelity begins with a lack of self-respect, a lack of dignity and integrity, a lack of belief in ourselves and a lack of healthy boundaries in our lives, among other things. How could anyone possible have a healthy and meaningful relationship with someone else when we can't even do so with ourselves? You can't give someone else what you don't already have for yourself.

My advice? Get an IC, and go work on yourself. Go figure out who you are and what kind of person you would be proud to live as. No one is proud of being a cheater. So go be someone better. Start by figuring out what broke your love for yourself, and fix it. In my life, I had to go back and deal with abuse, neglect and loss in my life that eroded and distorted how I viewed myself and love in general. For example, have you ever heard of a person who keeps choosing abusive partners to be with? Often, they have a history of abuse in their lives to begin with, and grow up feeling that the abuse is normal, desired even. Some even mistake abuse for love (e.g. He only beats me because he loves me and I deserved it by letting him down). Something your life seemed to have sent you into a panic as well. You were barely married when you turned tail and did something practically guaranteed to destroy the marriage and his love and respect for you. I don't think that was an accident. I think maybe you felt scared, or unworthy, and took steps to self-sabotage the marriage so that you could "prove to yourself" that you were right, that you weren't good enough.

Let the chips fall where they may with the marriage for now. Maybe, if he sees you working damn hard to fix what's broken in you... maybe he'll stick around to see how it pans out? Or maybe it will open the door to reconciliation with him in the future? Who knows? But the first step is to stop and figure yourself out.

I think posters need to respect that the user came here for guidance rather than condemnation.
I agree that the marriage is in dire straits and the most likely and possible outcome will be divorce.

But…

If he wants a divorce he doesn’t need to ask you. He can go get one. Nothing you can do to prevent it.
Sometimes when a betrayed spouse asks for a divorce it’s really a misworded request. It’s their way of saying this isn’t working and I want something different. Not always – but if he wants a divorce there is no requirement that you agree to it beforehand. He simply files.

My suggestion would be to focus on yourself. No matter how this goes you will always have you and have to deal with you. I think DaddyDom (as nearly always if not always…) offers you fantastic advice.

I would want to add a couple of points:

You could ask your husband for time. Ask for 3 months for you to change. If he wants to you two can file and get the paperwork out of the way. Maybe even agree on whatever lose ends there might be. But then ask that the docs be placed in an envelope and you get time to let the dust settle and see if there is something left to save.

Ask him what you can do to show your intent to change. Offer to change jobs to remove the OM from the equation.
Whether he asks for it or not be totally open and honest. Going to the Mall? Let him know and then come back at the time you said you would. Going out with Jane and Marge? Let him know. Share a photo on SM. Verify where you are. Going to pay rent tomorrow? Do it and let him know. Establish a pattern of being honest, truthful and open. It’s not that in the future he knows your every move, but rather that he learns that you are (at least) trying to change.

ps. I'm asking the mods to keep an eye on this thread and place a STOP sign if required.

Thank you all for the support and guidance

What happened during the inappropriate interaction 11 days ago with the AP? Why, all of a sudden, do you desire to save the marriage? Did the AP tell you that there is no future with him and that you now have decided to go back to your husband? Is he your plan B? Was it something else?

Whatever happens, you desperately need counseling with someone who can delve deeply into your destructive behavior. Why on earth would you stray so early in the marriage? Like so many of these posts, the devil is in the details so I really have nothing else to suggest.

**Posted on your other thread as well**

I'm sorry, seekinghelptoo, and I don't want to kick anyone when they are down. But I would tell your BH to run, far and fast, from you, as well. You and he are only 7 months in. This is supposedly the honeymoon period of your marriage, and you already strayed. Not to mention that now getting disentangled should be much easier now for your BH than later on.

Meanwhile, MC is right now a mistake. For at least two reasons that I can think of: 1. You cannot rebuild the marriage as your first step, because it was on unstable ground before this, namely, YOU. The same issues that you had that caused you to cheat in the first place, would cause your marriage to collapse again, unless you fix them. Even if your BH were to change his mind and "rugsweep" and give you another chance right now, you will otherwise eventually be back to your old ways once your relief and gratitude wears off. 2. MC presupposes that your BH has culpability for your affair and this mess your marriage currently is in. He does not--that is all on you. Your BH is absolutely right to say no to MC, it would be the advice he'd get on here in fact.

You instead need to do YOUR OWN PERSONAL WORK on YOURSELF first, and dig deep and find out why you were able to betray your H. This will include an IC who holds you accountable, not someone who tries to make you feel better with the "affairs are because of inmet needs" nonsense. Your affair was a bunch of conscious decisions on your part, whatever issues your M may have had, there were much better remedies than you deciding to step out behind your H's back and to betray him for another man.

Also just as important, your BH is devastated right now. He is going through such a complicated slag of painful emotions. On the one hand, he is ashamed for you to see him this way, on the other hand, he is furious and full of rage at you that it was you that twisted the knife and put him in this place to begin with. He really needs you to be on the ground with him as he works through his pain.

And last but as important as anything else, you need to start living with integrity, and this includes giving your BH a fair divorce settlement generous to him, if that is what he truly needs.

But anyways you are at the right place on the interwebz, you did well coming here, I do hope you stay and heed the advice given.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 3:20 PM, Thursday, February 3rd]

Seekinghelp - you may want to ask the mods to put a stop sign on this thread. All that does it prohibit BS (betrayed spouses) from posting. You can/will likely still get replies from other fellow wayward spouses.

You can post here that you’d like a stop sign, and it will be addressed when a mod or guide sees it.

Or you can start a new thread in Wayward, title mod please, and then put in the text/post that you would like a stop sign added.

FWIW, DaddyDom and Bigger have really trudged through the ditches of infidelity and are chock full of great advice.

Godspeed through this difficult time.

ETA: didn’t see that Bigger’s post indicated he’d be keeping an eye out. I would still suggest that you add the stop sign - at 11 days out, and a BS asking for D, things can be pretty raw.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 11:05 PM, Wednesday, February 2nd]

@Seekinghelptoo hi BS here. I see no stop sign at the time of posting so I'll try to answer. You're clearly in a lot of turmoil so instead of piling on how... terrible your actions were (and they were), I'll try to reach across the table and help answer your questions from the BS perspective and what your BH may want from you. I can see a lot of myself in your BS and I can see my ex in you.

I’m looking for any advice. How can I earn back trust?

You start by become trustworthy (I'll elaborate on this more). Currently however you have proven that your words cannot be trusted. So your BS is... well not going to trust your words.

I lied about the A for a month before he dragged it out of me and still a week later I couldn’t be totally be honest with him

I'm just using this to show that you know that your words are wind. Your BS does not trust you because you WORDS (which benefit him) and your ACTION (which benefits you) contradict each other.

What you CAN do though, is to build new trust through action. You do this through your actions, because actions cannot lie when words can. So if I was your BS I'd be looking to see HOW you are sorry (vs. you saying you're sorry).

haven’t done enough to make him feel I’m worth it

So what ACTION will you take to make him feel you're worth R-ing with? Others gave a lot of great examples. I can give a few too. But the important thing is that you need to DO it, not just say it.

My words are meaningless and hold no weight because I’ve been lying.

Great observation. When you are still lying your words are meaningless. So first thing I would advise you to do if you want to build trust is to stop lying. Completely. Offer full truth, timeline if needed like others said. This builds new trust with your BS. You'll show him that your words are finally aligning with your actions.

Ok but you're scared of telling him the truth. You're scared it'll push him further into D-ing you. As a BS here's the truth, your A is what decided that, not the amount of truth you tell. I'll use myself as an example. When I broke up with my ex, she denied and lied and didn't give me any info voluntarily. But I didn't need any more info to D her. She cheated, that's all the info I needed to D. Look at the other posters telling your BS to run from you (I would advise the same if your BS posted). The best way forward if you truly want R, is to show your BS that you are worthy of R, then praying that he gives it to you. You become worthy by, well the person he wants to have a genuine relationship with. You do this by giving complete and whole truth, no matter how scarry it is. I can tell you that as a BS, if my xWS told me the whole truth, I would have so much more respect for her and may have wanted to R. Instead she lied and lied, just like you're doing right now. That killed any chance at R. Because why would I want to build a relationship with someone who cannot tell the truth? Would you?

There are many more things you can do to build new trust (like finding your whys). I'll leave those to the many experienced fWSes who gives far better advice than I ever can give. But it all starts with the simple basics: You need to prove that you are trustworthy.

[This message edited by oldmewasmurdered at 12:40 AM, Thursday, February 3rd]

Listen to him. He wants out. Let him go.

Sorry, as a BS I feel the same way. You've blown up your husband's world. He is in extreme pain and has been traumatized. He wants to go, please do the honorable thing and allow him to walk away with dignity.

You are not even married a year, and you have had an emotional affair with a co-worker.

I suggest you find a good counselor for yourself to figure out why you went down this path when you should have been in marital bliss at the start of your marriage.

Let's start by focusing on you rather than on him or the marriage, because the direction things go from here may be partially determined by how you got this far.

When did the flirting start? What did you tell yourself about why an engaged/newlywed person would embark on an affair? Did you act like your BH was behaving inappropriately, or did you simply not think about him at all? These aren't accusations; I'm trying to get a handle on where to help you begin.

I agree that a new thread with a stop sign is a good idea, because then everyone who advises you will have walked in similar shoes.

I'm a BS. I attempted R with my xwh for 9 months past dday1. Well, I thought we were in R, but he was still doing all the same wayward things that landed us in the infidelity boat to begin with.

It took me those months to really come to grips in myself with the fact that I wanted a divorce. And when I 'got there' in my head, I was there and it wouldn't have mattered one bit what he did or said at that point. For me, saying 'I want a divorce' wasn't some attempt at control over him, it was because I was fully and completely done. I say that because it could be that your husband is the same. And if he IS the same, then there's nothing you can do really. You can (and absolutely should) focus on YOU - get into IC so you can heal what is broken in YOU.

For all the many things my xwh did wrong (and believe me those were a LOT), the one thing he did absolutely right was this: when I did get to the D place, he didn't fight it. He didn't contest anything. He didn't come after me for spousal support (and because I was the primary breadwinner he would have been legally entitled to at least $1000 a month for years). He didn't come after my house or my 401k or many of the other things that he was 'entitled' to. Early on in the D process he told me "I promise I don't want to screw you over in the D" and I laughed in his face and quipped back "Your promises mean less than nothing to me at this point." Because why would I believe him after all the lying he'd done? But he DID keep that promise and I am eternally grateful for that - it allowed me to move on with dignity and really start my healing.

So not knowing exactly where your husband is at, I will just say this: if he truly wants a divorce, grant it to him with kindness. Don't go after his assets, don't use your children (if you have any) as leverage, don't fight it and give him better-than-fair terms wherever you can. You patently haven't kept other promises and you can't undo that (no matter how much I'm sure you wish you could), but you CAN keep the promise to grant him a fair and quick and amicable divorce.

If you want to show him you love him, then respect that he wants a divorce and as Ellie said, don't make it hard on him. I can't give you tricks and tools to try and save your marriage because honestly, with cheating only 7 months in, there wasn't ever a marriage to save. Recovery from this takes years. It seems that most relationships are profoundly changed even if the two stay together. Check the posts in the Reconciliation forum and the General forum and get an idea of what you'd be consigning him to if you convinced him to stay. You'd be asking him to suffer through this with someone he won't ever feel the same way about for possibly the rest of his life. That would be selfish of you. Actually, it wouldn't be fair to you either. He'll heal faster by not doing that and have a chance to find someone to love without infidelity being in the mix damaging the foundation of the marriage permanently. That would be love. You could take the time to work on yourself and become someone who would not do this and find an untainted happiness with someone else.

Sometimes you can't put what you broke back together. Sometimes it wouldn't even be kind to do so.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 6:26 PM, Thursday, February 3rd]

I have not been in your shoes as far as cheating, but feel like it’s natural to want to fix things when we’ve done somebody wrong. Also hard to accept a marriage as a failure not even a year out (that I have done, divorced at 7 months because I realized it was stupid to get married in the first place). However to cheat that early in marriage, I feel like maybe you should consider whether or not you should even be married right now. Were you really ready for that commitment?

I agree with others that all you can control right now is you and what you do next. You can’t control the outcome with your husband. Figure out your whys and become a better person, not for him, but for you so you can go on to have healthy relationships. If divorce is what he needs, let him have that.

Good luck!

Maybe there should be a reverse stop sign, as BS are in a better position to give advice on what they would like to have seen done( just kidding).

I think you just need to be completely honest, never cheat again, be amenable to a fair divorce, maybe ask for time to change as Bigger suggests. And, then just see if he changes his mind. He may not, infidelity is a dealbreaker for most folks.

People's tolerance for being abused and their ability to forgive varies greatly. Your husband , probably, does not know if he can ever get passed this. It might be possible but odds may not be good.

Seekinghelptoo,

Great move finding this place and posting here. I feel like SI saved me and I will always be grateful.

Have you read the pinned post Things Every Wayward Needs to Know? If not do that first. I agree that your focus should not be on saving the M at this point. It’s good to make sure he knows what you want but more important that you give him what he needs.

I also agree with other posters that you need to focus on fixing yourself. That starts with brutal honesty.

Be completely honest with him. Tell him everything he wants to know. He will always have a sick sense that he doesn’t have the truth unless you give it to him. He can not even think about R if he doesn’t have the full reality of what his M was. But even if you D the truth can be helpful to his healing and owning your shit can be helpful to your healing. If he wants a written timeline work on it like it’s your job and your boss is thinking about firing you.

Do the recommended reading. It will open your eyes to things you are clueless about right now.

For me the very first step and the hardest was being completely honest with him and with myself. I still find it essential to be completely honest even about the little things. I love myself and him too much to get back on that slippery slope.

Also LET GO OF THE OUTCOME COMPLETELY. Do the work and fix yourself and be decent to him no matter what he needs because you want to be a person you can respect and love. Do that and you will get through this even if it feels like it will kill you.

Seeking

I couldn’t be totally be honest with him about an inappropriate interaction I had with my AP after Dday (11 days ago) until he asked me what else I was hiding. .

What was this inappropriate interaction since you are saying you did not have sex with him. Unfortunately, lies after D Day sometimes cause worse trauma that even sex itself.

Also wondering how husband was complaining about your behavior right from the beginning of marriage. Did this start with AP before you even got married.???

Just a suggestion, it might help if you ask him exactly what he still thinks you are lying about, and then offer to take a polygraph if that will help him belive you. You have nothing to lose by offering and being proactive.

I would stay away from MC UNLESS even if he agreed UNLESS you seriously interview therapist about their credentials in dealing with infidelity. The absolute last thing your husband needs to hear right now is some nitwit asking him what he did that caused you to do this.

No reason for anyone to beat you up here. You apparently know what you did. I would have to agree with others, maybe you just are not ready to be married. Affairs are happening all the time these days but not usually in a marriage as short as yours.

Good luck to you.

[This message edited by BeyondRage at 2:29 PM, Monday, February 7th]

BS here too but still no stop sign...

Seeking - you say at the top of your post that your BH has been complaining about not being a priority since you married. You describe yourself as "self involved" and then, of course, you had an EA.

My advice to you would be, as others have suggested, to focus on yourself. I am not sure, based on the scant details you've posted, if you were actually in love with this man and/or ready for marriage. You are now faced with losing him and that sets in a panic that might make you think you love or value him but panic does not equal love. Take a breathe here. Calm the panic and start thinking: about you and what you really want/need in life.

I'm saying this gently because I think many people marry without really thinking through (or admitting) what it means, what they really want, etc. I don't know if that's you but I get that from what you posted.

Don't lure him back to ease your panic. Take this time to dig deep on who you are and what you really want. Determine if you can love him the way he deserves and frankly, the way you deserve.

[This message edited by TheEnd at 11:47 PM, Monday, February 7th]

Short-ish and sweet:

I've been working on this concept for a while with (one time wayward)Hubs-

The notion that he got married too early,
not necessarily too young, but too soon.

He 'plugged me in' where the unconditional love of his parents and his extended family at large could have been (notice that I avoid the loaded word 'should')

... except that they weren't there,
because they were busy occupying and populating The Judgment Zone,
i.e. 'The Shoulds.'

They were so strong into 'The Shoulds' that it sucked all of the air out of the room, out of their lungs, out of Hub's lungs, out of my own damned lungs...
... it was suffocating.

So Hubs found me, and I was heavily invested personally in building infrastructure to replace my own disintegrated and absent family...

... and he plugged me into where the solid, infrastructure providing and supporting parents 'should' have been with their 'unconditional love,'

... and then he tried the ever loving fuck out of me with adolescent bullshit.

Because, IMHO, all he *ever* got out of his parents was Judgy McJudgathon. They provided the infrastructure and, to their own capacity, the 'love,' but it was always clearly, even starkly, framed as conditional.

Honestly, I felt like I dealt with his adolescense, because he didn't feel safe enough or secure enough to have a proper adolescence with his parents. They simply didn't have the capacity.

And also honestly, at the very same time, I mean absolutely simultaneously, WE WERE ADULTING AS HARD AS WE OR ANYONE ELSE HAS EVER ADULTED.

I don't want to take *anything* away from Hubs: in terms of providing the infrastructure we all seem to identify as 'proper and right' for building a life, he was providing in diamonds,

... and he was also, simultaneously, acting out like The Joker, more or less in my lap, and literally demanding that I just deal with it.

Whenever I hear/see/read about this type of behavior early in marriage, I recall that time in our marriage, and I wonder if I'm seeing a deferred/delayed/misplaced adolescence,

... misplaced/deferred to 'someplace safe.'

(I also ponder the idea that a deferred/displaced adolescense may be more, just simply 'more,' due to the sheer deferrance, and frustration, and that the fact that the older we are when we arrive at adolescense, the fewer/wider/less existent the boundaries, the greater and more fertile the opportunities, and the larger the pent up momentum.)

OP, might you perchance be acting out some rebellion, or some self discovery, or some past unmet needs, or some frustration, on your new marriage/your new husband???

*sent with respect and love*

...

I don’t know how to respond to posts but some things I’ve gathered.

Many people have said to focus on myself and I can see that it’s much easier to justify why you did something then to own up to why are are something you despise. I couldn’t see how selfish I am, maybe because he was always my support, more emotionally intelligent and self aware. I always thought of my self as loving and compassionate but it was easier to do that when I wasn’t the problem. I am I’m in shock of who I am. It’s like I put glasses on and can take a honest look at myself.

I have come completely clean. I understand he is still asking me the same questions but I can finally answer him the same now that the full truth has come out.

I am seeking my own therapists to help me get to the root cause. I have read the "things wayward spouses should know" and read it often. I’m reading the "how to heal your spouse from your affair". I am spending my free time trying to analyze myself. I want to not justify or diminish his hurt. I do love my husband, and truly believe I can be the person he deserves, although I know I am far from understanding and showing what it means to truly love someone. I do feel like I may have rushed into marriage, thinking I was mature and emotionally ready to give up my own wants for our life. I am investing most of my free time trying to dissect my intentions, expectations, and desires about marriage and trying to be honest if we can find happiness together. I am trying to show how I took his love for granted and show that I will not do it again. It is helpful to hear other perspectives, especially from BS, because sometimes you don’t want to accept the level of hurt you caused someone, but it’s important to face reality to make any real change.