SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'll try to make the backstory short here. (Now that I've written it all, it's longer than I expected. Sorry) My WH started an affair in 2011, less than a year after I'd almost died giving birth to our 2nd baby. That affair continued for a few months, and then continued for the next decade over the phone. I didn't find out about it until the end of 2020. I later found out that over the years he'd been on dating sites, Ashley Madison, tried initiating other affairs at work, but was unsuccessful. In early 2020 he told me he'd met someone at work and wanted a divorce. After a couple weeks he ended that and we attempted R. But it was false R the whole time, as I found out later that year about the decade-long affair and datings sites and so on. Needless to say I was absolutely devastated.

I kicked him out mid-2021 and filed for legal separation. Didn't speak to him much for the next year. He was very sorry by this point and finally felt the full weight of his actions. We slowly started doing some things together as a family (like Halloween, or a random bike ride), but I was still very much not healed. I sank into a deep depression for a long time. By last year I was feeling more like a normal person again, and WH had been consistently here for me and our kids over all this time.

The reason I'm writing is becuase I so badly just want our family back together. It's like I want him here, but I also don't want him here. I'm angry that he stole so many years from me where I could have been with someone who truly cared about me. But also, it's done, and he seems to really be fully in now. But my god he's caused me so much hurt and been so disrespectful and unloving. If we didn't have kids this would be such an easy answer for me. But we do, and it just feels important for me to have us all together. I want something I can't have: either a life without him, where I get to raise my kids with someone who's all-in, or to have him here in an existence where he didn't cause so much pain.

Lately we've been in this weird limbo area, and I finally told him I know we can't keep going like this, and I just can't commit to 100% being back together and living together again, so I'm going to finally call it quits. And i feel AWFUL! I don't want this. I don't want any of this. I want to say ok, come back. I can see you've been trying hard for the last few years, and that counts for something. And I want my family together. And actually things have been pretty good. And we can get back to doing things and making fun memories. But also it's all so tainted for me. I feel like he never really loved me to be able to do the things he did, and so he probaly doesn't love me now, though he says he does.

I know this is all the consequences of infidelity. It ruins everything and makes the WS's words and actions feel meaningless for the BS. I just don't know what to do here. I'm so sad all over again.

antbee - So sorry that you had to come looking for all of us here - but, it is a great place to help your broken heart get through this. Totally I understand your feelings. Limbo is a hard place to be. It is important to know where you are and just be in that spot - honestly. So, I say be there in the spot where you are. That's where you need to be right now. You will know what to do if that should change. It shouldn't be hard to choose I think. You just know when it is time to leave limbo. You just know. Limbo is a different time space for anyone who lands there.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I've had such a hard time feeling like I know the right thing to do. If money were no factor, I know what I'd choose, but that's not my reality.

antbee,

Suppose you met a new guy. Got pretty serious with him. He checked lots of boxes.

But then he confessed he cheated in a prior relationship. But said all the right things: what he’d done to fix himself, his horror at the pain he had caused, etc., etc.

Would it be an absolute deal killer with him?

If so, you know what you have to do here.

If not, well . . .

"Once a cheater . . ."
"Adultery is only hard the first time"

But what about someone who has learned a terrible lesson.

This has all been debated here. If anybody had figured this all out, there wouldn’t be 1000 books; there’d only be one book.

Sigh. There’s always risk.

That's a great way to think about this. It kills me that I can't know the right answer. I want to peek into the future and see if I choose this path, I'll meet someone amazing and everything will be ok. Or if it leads to a life of constant struggle for me.

I would not choose to be with someone who had cheated the way my WH did. Maybe if it was a one time thing when they were young, I could look past that. But also, my WH really gets how badly his behavior hurt all of us now, and I honestly don't think he would do it again. And he's my kids' dad. And I so badly want our family together.

Yeah, I’m a sucker for "family."

Me too It *means* something to me.