SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hey all,
I want to start out by saying im sorry in advance if anything that i say does come off as selfish, i am really hurting at the thought that i did this and created this pain for my partner, putting him in this position in the first place.
BS and I have been together for 4 years, we met and had such a beautiful relationship that i look back on as genuinely perfect, however over the years as you do in a relationship we went through ALOT, an abortion that he wanted and i didnt, alot of yelling at eachother back and forth, trust issues with eachother when nothing was even there yet, finance issues and control issues and just overall what i thought was something so perfect turned into a mess and we both in a way resented eachother for it all and couldnt get past it in a healthy way. Before i had my Affair, my husband was sleeping on the couch for 4 months and i was a begging mess just wanting love from him, for him to come to bed and for all of this hate in our house to stop, still nothing worked and we felt so far apart.
I didnt seek the A, it happened very quickly with a new person who came into my life to create music with me, he was kind to me, made me feel worthy, things i hadnt been feeling with my partner and i ate it up like an idiot, i slept with the man and 2 days after that felt so sick about what id done and i ended it. I was a selfish mess knowing what id done would likely mean losing my partner i was weak and i didnt tell him, honestly just hoping hed never know and that i could try to mend our already broken relationship, looking back it never shouldve happened in the first place to even have to tell him and i definitely shouldn't have hid it from him but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I am hoping to share my story since Dday and find out if its normal, what i can do to make this up to him for the rest of my life and if you think there is even a chance of that since i never thought id be saying any of this,
3 and a half weeks ago was Dday, i made alot of mistakes at the beginning - the day he found out, he found out on social media, i was a balling mess, begging and telling him i never shouldve done it and i would never do it again and he kicked me out of our house which i also begged not to be but he told me to go to my sisters and that it was over end of story, i got to my sisters and in the following 3 days he had called me 127 times to yell at me, ask me questions, make fun of me that i lost him and tell me it was over, if i hung up based on the names he was calling me, he would call back and keep going, calling me to tell me i didnt deserve him, he doesnt miss me etc at this point i figured i caused this and i have to work with the pain from his end if i want a chance to reconcile so i just let him yell at me over and over and kept apologising, reaffirming id never do it again etc. i also asked if he had made up his mind that there was no chance for me to try and rebuild this with him to which he said 'not right now, i dont have any answers for you right now' after 5 days he asked if i wanted to come over and see our dog but not to stay the night 'right now' so i did, came over saw my dog, got yelled at by him and had sex (he said 'lets have sex while youre here, we may as well unless you want me to get bored here by myself') he then dropped me back at my sisters, he called a couple times after that to yell at me again, i would just take it and apologise and decided to start working on myself, reading how i could help him through this and focusing on my relationship with god and repenting for what id done to my partner. A week passed, we still spoke to some extent every day, hed send me videos of our dog at the park with him, funny videos sometimes that hed seen, but then he would also have moments in between of yelling at me and telling me its over and then when asked if theres no chance still had the same answer, 'i dont know right now, you did this, its not going to happen as quick as you want and you have to be patient and loyal to me while i decide and even then i cant promise anything' so i took it with grace that because we were still in contact and seeing eachother he must somewhat be working to that with me.. anyway since then we saw eachother for two sleepovers in two weeks, which both had sexual intimacy but he wouldnt let me sleep in the bed, i slept in the spare room and he wouldnt let me cuddle him, asked me not to touch him etc, things really hit me how close we were to over but there were glimmers of hope, we started going to church together, he lets me touch his leg, kiss his cheek etc, but says he still doesnt know and he cant get happy around me and ive ruined everything, ruined our future etc. its very up and down between talking about a future together in ways and then talking about there not being one and it is very confusing to know where i stand! this last week, i spent 6 nights at our house and he didnt ask to take me home, confusing 6 days of seeming on a good path to next second him yelling at me that its all over etc i honestly from church and researching and learning plus counselling think i am a whole different person already, willing to take responsibility for what i have done and dote on my partner with whatever he needs from me to get through this even though the downs are hard not to make you lose hope, i have learnt to get through them by loving him and not defending my actions at all. the last night i stayed there he actually came into the spare room in the morning and layed his head on my chest, talking to me not about what had happened but other future goals he has and how things are going for him business wise, i was extremely happy because the fact he layed on me meant the world of difference to me than he had been the weeks prior to this, however he still would tell me that he can see ive changed and ive found something in my life (god) but he still needs space, and dropped me back to my sisters that day, when i said i love you to him as i left the car he said 'you too' which isnt something ive been able to get from him since dday, normally he will just ignore me, so again it meant the world to me thinking we were on a path, then he text me later that night that i had cheated him out of a long term relationship and he doesnt want me to think things are good between us cause he still doesnt know. i asked if he was being loyal to me while deciding what he wants to do and he said of course, also something along the lines of youre going to hate yourself in the future for how loyal ive been to you, which i understand most of these comments come from pain but at the same time they hurt. what can i do to help this process other than what i am already doing? i have gotten to the point of not emotionally reacting and affirming how sorry i am, id never do it again and he is all that i want, which is 100% truth from my heart and soul but he of course (i dont blame him) doesnt believe me.

Dear dc1997112,

After reading your post, I've found some commonality with my post D-Day situation. My BH was also acting similar. That's why I'll post some thoughts about why he acts like this for you to understand better.

First of all, even you have bad things in your life, cheating is not an option. You should talk about them with open communication but for this you both need to understand and have the mind to not judge each other. Unfortunately, for your condition I believe this didn't happened and you found yourself cheating on him. First of all you need to own your acts,its consequences and wounds that this act created on his heart. You need to find the root reasons to be able to heal yourself and work on your relationship correctly and for this I would reccomend seeing an IC.

Your BSs condition is different than yours. He is very confused as I can see in your post. That's why he is cold and close to you time to time. He is not being able to process it at the moment due to soooooo many mixed feelings: sadness, shock, anger...

Men have the mindset of comparing themselves with other men.

he asked if i wanted to come over and see our dog but not to stay the night 'right now' so i did, came over saw my dog, got yelled at by him and had sex (he said 'lets have sex while youre here, we may as well unless you want me to get bored here by myself')

When I read this, it reminded me the first sex I had with my BH after the D-Day. My BH had orgasm issues with sex. He mostly not be able to get orgasm with sex. After that sex he told me that 'see, I can also get orgasm by sex.' So men tend to compare them with each other. I strongly think that your BS compares himself with the AP since you had PA.

If you read some of my posts, you can see that half a month after my BH and I divorced, we got back together and started with reconcilation and even after 1.5 years later we became GF and BF. However this requires both parties affords and to be honest at least 80% of it comes from WS. What I'm trying to say is, you first need to get into the mindset of being able to give from yourself for your BS, this also might end up with a failure. There is no gurantee. But if you are willing to take the responsibility then you should be going for it imo.

Here I can provide a list for you to do. I hope that helps, it helped me at least.

- First of all, start IC immediately to find out the root cause. Then start work on in. Second part can take very long. Just keep that in mind and work on it. He should also start to IC immediately.

- Also please take care of yourself. I know from my experiences that you might skip your meals, daily activities and such. So try to eat well, take care of yourself physically and that will also reflects on your actions and mind in time.

- Give a talk to BS. As I said, he is very confused right now. Explain everything: what happened and what you did with all transparency. Don't skip any thing or don't lie! Tell him what happened. He have a right to know about all of this to have al least alittle bit of clarity.

- No contact with AP!!! This is extremely important. Just cut out. Don't speak, don't message, block him if he sends messages or calls you.

- Apologize often. You should be doing this from your heart not because he wants to hear it. He can be triggered from everthing: from a movie, from reading something, even from seeing you. In those times, try to be calm and tell him that you are sorry and mean it.

- Be loyal to him during this time. Eventhough you are seperated, you want to work on getting him back. And just don't to anything to broke his trust alot more.

- If he wants alone time, give him that. Don't push him, this can make the situation alot worse.

- Alway always empathize and treat him like that. Imagine if he cheated on you and do what you would expect from him to do.

- I was extremely transparent. He knew all my passwords, he knew who I'm gonna meet, when I'll be back at home etc. I even shared my live location to him alot of the time for hours. Even this seems like 'controlling' it is actually not. This is the way to prove him and make him feel better since he has trust issues currently.

Overall, there is alot to work on and you should be taking responsibility to do the work. Reconciliation is always a possiblity.

So sorry to hear what you’re going through! I’m still early in my recovery/ discovery (almost 5 months since my Husband found out of my affair).

I just wanted to list out some things I did that I found helpful for my spouse!

-Tell the truth, the whole truth, even if it sucks and even if it hurts him. Not being honest and trickle truth made our situation 100% worse.

-Get into IC as soon as possible. I was able to find counseling about 2months after DDay and my spouse has even joined me a few times to hear about my progress. I find having a neutral person to vent to/ ask for advice/ dig into MY issues has been very helpful. I think some traditional marriage counseling puts a lot of pressure on the Betrayed Spouse to reconcile. I made it very clear on session one that I’m in no rush to have my husband make a decision on Reconciling or Divorce. I would take time to address your issues and learn how to be a better spouse before jumping into MC.

-If you can afford it do a polygraph!!! I found a professional polygraph office that allowed me to be asked 4 affair related questions for $500. Very expensive and time consuming but 100% worth the money. My spouse provided me with questions he wanted clarification on and I passed them all truthfully. Provided my husband the results the same day and I really think this gave him some peace of mind. I did this without my husband pressuring or forcing me to go. I think taking that step to schedule it yourself shows dedication to providing your spouse with clarification on your affair that they so desperately deserve to know.

- Cut off contact with AP AND any friends that knew of your affair/supported your affair. My entire friend group has changed since DDay. If you don’t support my marriage recovery then you no longer can take up space in my life. As far as AP goes, if you haven’t blocked him or removed him from all social media, ect I would suggest doing that ASAP and showing your spouse proof.

- Accountability and Honesty go a long way. This is an area I really had to work on, but I would suggest you prioritize being fully transparent with where you’re going, who you’re talking to, your weekly plans, ect. There’s no such thing as too much information for your spouse post affair. If you’re going to get coffee and say you’ll be home at 11am you better be home at 11am. If your plans change communicate that immediately. They shouldn’t have to question what you’re doing. Share your passwords, share your location, send them reminders of your work schedule, ect.

-Give him space if needed and try to not take it personally. My spouse will also have days where he’s just angry and being around me doesn’t help. I do struggle being away from him (even if we’re in the same house but not talking/in the same room). You can feel when their energy is off or when they’re having tough days. Offer to talk, offer support, answer questions, give physical touch. But if they express to give them space, just tough it out.

-Love him no matter how hard it gets. Even if he doesn’t want to kiss you, even if he doesn’t want to say I Love You back, even if he’s distant. Give him all the love you have to offer and just be kind. It takes time and they are healing from the worst form of trauma. We were supposed to be their safe person, the one person they could trust/ rely on. And unfortunately, we fucked that up. So that trust is going to be re-built from the ground up. Just be patient and don’t give up on him.

I hope this helps some! I still don’t know if I’m doing everything right in my situation but I’m showing up for him everyday. And sometimes that’s all you can do.