Anybody stay married after an affair?

[junebug]

Has anybody been able to work through H having an affair? Any advice welcome. 

[glitzyglow]

I was not able to work through it, but I initially tried. You might check out survivinginfidelity.com as a resource, as well as the book After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful. I would also highly, highly recommend therapy.

[glynn]

I tried..... The first was in 2010. Found out about the latest in May 2015 and I am out.

[Deleted]

No. For me, once trust is broken like that I am done. I'd never be able to trust what he told me again--going out to watch the game? Riiight.
People do it...and I don't personally understand it. Only you know if you can truly move on and truly forgive with no bad feelings and not let it cross your mind regularly.

[jojoandleo]

Nope. I don't trust easily to begin with. Rebuilding broken trust? Not going to happen.

I think you really need to ask yourself if you can actually get over it. Would you throw the affair in his face when fighting? Would you worry anytime he went out without you there? Would you be able to believe him if he said he was working late? Would you be okay with him having female friends? Would you use his affair as an excuse for YOU to do something detrimental to your marriage (ignore him, be rude to him, talk shit about him to all your friends, etc.)?

In order to stay after an affair, you really have to let the affair go. You can't keep bringing it up, you can't use it as an excuse to go through his phone/computer/etc. You have to go to counseling, work through it, and GET OVER IT. Not immediately, obviously, but in the not so distant future. You can't stay married and hold onto the affair.

I think people make mistakes that don't define them. I think someone CAN cheat once and never cheat again. However, I think cheating is often a sign of something else. Is it a deeper character flaw? One that will guarantee he continues to cheat? Is it a sign of an issue in your marriage that he didn't address and sought attention outside his marriage? You have to get to the root of WHY he cheated. Which may be painful. And the answer may be-he is a cheater. Period.

[Deleted]

I did, but then he cheated again a little over 2 years later. We divorced after that.

I think I could have gotten over the initial affair if there hadn't been a repeat. But we had a lot of issues anyway.

I'm not sure what I'd do if it happened again in a new relationship. I think I'd probably consider cheating a dealbreaker at this point, given my past experience. Also, the fact that my partner KNOWS that I've been through it in the past and ended my marriage over it - I'd think it was extra disrespectful to do that to me knowing what I've been through in the past.

I do think sometimes people make mistakes, learn from them, and everyone can move forward and things will be fine in the end. It does happen to some people. There is nothing wrong with trying to work through an affair if you want to.

[bl]

I was willing to at first, but he still wasn't being honest with me about a ton of stuff which is a larger issue to me than the cheating. Also, for me personally a one time oh shit moment is way easier to forgive than an ongoing affair where lying happens repeatedly. I can truly move on, forgive, and let it go if its a one time lapse in judgment and you're honest about it, I have a much harder time when you make an active decision to lie and deceive me repeatedly, this goes for friendships too.

[junebug]

Jan 4, 2016 13:21:06 GMT -5 jojoandleo said:

Nope. I don't trust easily to begin with. Rebuilding broken trust? Not going to happen.

I think you really need to ask yourself if you can actually get over it. Would you throw the affair in his face when fighting? Would you worry anytime he went out without you there? Would you be able to believe him if he said he was working late? Would you be okay with him having female friends? Would you use his affair as an excuse for YOU to do something detrimental to your marriage (ignore him, be rude to him, talk shit about him to all your friends, etc.)?

In order to stay after an affair, you really have to let the affair go. You can't keep bringing it up, you can't use it as an excuse to go through his phone/computer/etc. You have to go to counseling, work through it, and GET OVER IT. Not immediately, obviously, but in the not so distant future. You can't stay married and hold onto the affair.

I think people make mistakes that don't define them. I think someone CAN cheat once and never cheat again. However, I think cheating is often a sign of something else. Is it a deeper character flaw? One that will guarantee he continues to cheat? Is it a sign of an issue in your marriage that he didn't address and sought attention outside his marriage? You have to get to the root of WHY he cheated. Which may be painful. And the answer may be-he is a cheater. Period.

This is what I'm struggling with. I'm going to give myself some time to think it through, but I'm not sure if I can really ever trust him again. Like, will it always be nagging at the back of my mind? 

[junebug]

Jan 4, 2016 13:54:42 GMT -5 @buckybells said:

I did, but then he cheated again a little over 2 years later. We divorced after that.

I think I could have gotten over the initial affair if there hadn't been a repeat. But we had a lot of issues anyway.

I'm not sure what I'd do if it happened again in a new relationship. I think I'd probably consider cheating a dealbreaker at this point, given my past experience. Also, the fact that my partner KNOWS that I've been through it in the past and ended my marriage over it - I'd think it was extra disrespectful to do that to me knowing what I've been through in the past.

I do think sometimes people make mistakes, learn from them, and everyone can move forward and things will be fine in the end. It does happen to some people. There is nothing wrong with trying to work through an affair if you want to.

thank you, I needed to hear this. I feel very negative about working through it, but I feel like that may be because it is all so fresh. 

[junebug]

Jan 4, 2016 12:41:53 GMT -5 glitzyglow said:

I was not able to work through it, but I initially tried. You might check out survivinginfidelity.com as a resource, as well as the book After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful. I would also highly, highly recommend therapy.

Thank you for these recommendations. Therapy was booked the day I found out. I figured that regardless of the outcome of the marriage, we needed to figure out how to communicate/ work together for our children. 

[jojoandleo]

Jan 4, 2016 18:47:49 GMT -5 junebug said:

Jan 4, 2016 13:21:06 GMT -5 jojoandleo said:

Nope. I don't trust easily to begin with. Rebuilding broken trust? Not going to happen.

I think you really need to ask yourself if you can actually get over it. Would you throw the affair in his face when fighting? Would you worry anytime he went out without you there? Would you be able to believe him if he said he was working late? Would you be okay with him having female friends? Would you use his affair as an excuse for YOU to do something detrimental to your marriage (ignore him, be rude to him, talk shit about him to all your friends, etc.)?

In order to stay after an affair, you really have to let the affair go. You can't keep bringing it up, you can't use it as an excuse to go through his phone/computer/etc. You have to go to counseling, work through it, and GET OVER IT. Not immediately, obviously, but in the not so distant future. You can't stay married and hold onto the affair.

I think people make mistakes that don't define them. I think someone CAN cheat once and never cheat again. However, I think cheating is often a sign of something else. Is it a deeper character flaw? One that will guarantee he continues to cheat? Is it a sign of an issue in your marriage that he didn't address and sought attention outside his marriage? You have to get to the root of WHY he cheated. Which may be painful. And the answer may be-he is a cheater. Period.

This is what I'm struggling with. I'm going to give myself some time to think it through, but I'm not sure if I can really ever trust him again. Like, will it always be nagging at the back of my mind? 

It's not something you need to figure out now.  But it's something you need to figure out I'd say in a year.  Ya know?

[junebug]

Jan 4, 2016 21:26:51 GMT -5 jojoandleo said:

Jan 4, 2016 18:47:49 GMT -5 junebug said:

This is what I'm struggling with. I'm going to give myself some time to think it through, but I'm not sure if I can really ever trust him again. Like, will it always be nagging at the back of my mind? 

It's not something you need to figure out now.  But it's something you need to figure out I'd say in a year.  Ya know?

Yeah, I'm trying to be easy on myself for the time being. I tend to want to fix things right away, and I know that work this time.

[RamblingRose]

Jan 4, 2016 21:41:46 GMT -5 junebug said:

Jan 4, 2016 21:26:51 GMT -5 jojoandleo said:

It's not something you need to figure out now.  But it's something you need to figure out I'd say in a year.  Ya know?

Yeah, I'm trying to be easy on myself for the time being. I tend to want to fix things right away, and I know that work this time.

There is an update thread on ML now from an AE whose husband cheated on her. 

[mrsnole]

Jan 4, 2016 12:20:01 GMT -5 junebug said:

Has anybody been able to work through H having an affair? Any advice welcome. 

I'm going to send you a PM.

[verycontrary247]

Nope. That kind of deep betrayal of trust is something I can't move on from. That was the main reason we got divorced.

[pandora]

I wasn't able to but u do know a couple who 15 years later are happy and faithful. He cheated in the first year, came clean on his own (this was a deciding factor for her) and they went to counseling to work things out. He was totally committed and was totally open and honest about everything and ended all contact telling the woman that he was working things out with his wife. The other woman got divorced - it was a coworker and he changed jobs and ended all contact.

It was hard on her but he did everything possible to help her rebuild her trust and their relationship. It is possible based on their success but I consider them the exception not the rule. Take it one day at a time and be kind to yourself.

[jojoandleo]

Jan 4, 2016 21:41:46 GMT -5 junebug said:

Jan 4, 2016 21:26:51 GMT -5 jojoandleo said:

It's not something you need to figure out now.  But it's something you need to figure out I'd say in a year.  Ya know?

Yeah, I'm trying to be easy on myself for the time being. I tend to want to fix things right away, and I know that work this time.

You should be easy on yourself. YOU did nothing wrong. Remember that. It's okay to stay. People tend to be all "I would NEVER" when they aren't YOU and aren't in your situation.  They don't really know.  It's also okay to leave.  The person you should put first right now is YOU.  You need to heal personally before the relationship can heal. 

[bullygirl979]

Jan 4, 2016 18:47:49 GMT -5 junebug said:

Jan 4, 2016 13:21:06 GMT -5 jojoandleo said:

Nope. I don't trust easily to begin with. Rebuilding broken trust? Not going to happen.

I think you really need to ask yourself if you can actually get over it. Would you throw the affair in his face when fighting? Would you worry anytime he went out without you there? Would you be able to believe him if he said he was working late? Would you be okay with him having female friends? Would you use his affair as an excuse for YOU to do something detrimental to your marriage (ignore him, be rude to him, talk shit about him to all your friends, etc.)?

In order to stay after an affair, you really have to let the affair go. You can't keep bringing it up, you can't use it as an excuse to go through his phone/computer/etc. You have to go to counseling, work through it, and GET OVER IT. Not immediately, obviously, but in the not so distant future. You can't stay married and hold onto the affair.

I think people make mistakes that don't define them. I think someone CAN cheat once and never cheat again. However, I think cheating is often a sign of something else. Is it a deeper character flaw? One that will guarantee he continues to cheat? Is it a sign of an issue in your marriage that he didn't address and sought attention outside his marriage? You have to get to the root of WHY he cheated. Which may be painful. And the answer may be-he is a cheater. Period.

This is what I'm struggling with. I'm going to give myself some time to think it through, but I'm not sure if I can really ever trust him again. Like, will it always be nagging at the back of my mind? 

My XH cheated on me. We tried to work it out for several months and I talked with my mom over and over and over because I had the same question as you do now. The best piece of advice she ever told me is to stop talking to him about it. She said "he knows what you want. You've told him multiple times what you want and what you need. Now, stop talking about it and sit back and watch. That will show you who he truly is." I did that and boy, was she right. It became blatantly clear that while he said he was sorry/he would change/etc his actions spoke in the complete opposite direction. He just wanted me to forgive, forget and move on. He wasn't interested in doing the work to repair the marriage. So, I left.

jojoandleo gave you good advice. Eventually, you will need to let it go. But, you will both need to put the work in to get to a place where you feel like you can let it go. Are you willing to do that? Is he?

[winecat]

Jan 4, 2016 18:53:19 GMT -5 junebug said:

Jan 4, 2016 12:41:53 GMT -5 glitzyglow said:

I was not able to work through it, but I initially tried. You might check out survivinginfidelity.com as a resource, as well as the book After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful. I would also highly, highly recommend therapy.

Thank you for these recommendations. Therapy was booked the day I found out. I figured that regardless of the outcome of the marriage, we needed to figure out how to communicate/ work together for our children. 

Survivinginfidelity.com has a lot of great resources.  There are some couples on there who have successfully reconciled.  Big hugs.  I'm so sorry that you're going through it.  

[jojoandleo]

I feel I should add HE needs to fix HIS individual issues first, too. He needs to figure out why he chose to cheat. Not what was wrong with your marriage, or what was stressing him out, but why he, as an individual, chose the option of cheating rather than getting help/talking to you.

[bullygirl979]

Jan 5, 2016 10:47:18 GMT -5 jojoandleo said:

I feel I should add HE needs to fix HIS individual issues first, too. He needs to figure out why he chose to cheat. Not what was wrong with your marriage, or what was stressing him out, but why he, as an individual, chose the option of cheating rather than getting help/talking to you.

Agreed. He needs to work on his issues, OP needs to work on her feelings and how she will deal etc and they both need to work on the marriage.

[humpty]

I am still under a year from discovery day so it's still in the early stages but for now I've chosen to stay. We did counseling and he's going to individual counseling now. He has owned up to everything he did and realizes the impact it's made as well as realizing how much he took me for granted. For now things are going well and we have been able to communicate more easily when things need to be said which is something we didn't do well at all before. Some days are better than others. I still have trigger moments when his phone chimes (found out about his affair through texts) but he tells me or shows me the emails/messages when the phone goes off.

I know that at this point in our reconciliation if I were to find out about a new affair it would be over.

I wish you the best.

[1confused1]

I could never get past the betrayal of trust, I was constantly on edge and never believed what he said when he told me where he was.

Turns out my gut feeling was right and we divorced.

[mcgee]

When I found out my ex was having an affair, he immediately said he wanted to go to counseling and make the marriage work. We immediately went into counseling, and I was pretty adamant that I needed to know the entire scope of the problem (he'd been on Ashley Madison and a few other sites) before I'd be able to move on, and that I needed him to be honest with me. A friend confided around that time that she'd taken her husband back after an affair, and he'd cheated on her again, and that if it happened one more time she was out of there. I was really afraid of that happening to me, and I really NEEDED him to be honest with me about just how bad this situation was, so I threw down an ultimatum and said that I was willing to give him another chance, but that if I caught him lying again, I was done. He balked at therapy when the therapist tried to get him to see just how much damage he'd done to the marriage and that no matter how unhappy he was, he had an obligation to come to me and try to improve the situation, rather than cheat. "I want to make it work" lasted all of two weeks when I caught him in another lie. When I called him on it, he threw in the towel and said he wanted out.

Some people on these boards referred me to surviving infidelity at the time, but I honestly didn't like it. It was almost too much negative energy, and too many people preaching that you had to handle adultery in THIS particular way, or I guess terrible things would happen, IDK. It just really rubbed me the wrong way. It might be a better fit for you though. Regardless, see a therapist just on your own, go to counseling with your spouse. In the meantime, talk to a lawyer, look at your options, put some money aside in case you need to get out in a hurry. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

I'm so sorry that you're dealing with this.

[Deleted]

That wasn't the only issue in our marriage but we stayed together five more months before we decided to divorce. I just couldnt trust him.

[angieawesome]

Nope. Trust was obliterated and I don't see how a marriage can survive with no trust. Wasn't worth it to me. Looking back, I'm 100% sure I made the right decision.

[Mrs.Rad888]

My XH was kicked out of the Navy for his adultery, so it impacted more than just our marriage. He was disqualified from some jobs because the company had Government contracts, I was forced to transfer to a new duty station because I wasn't dual military any more, a few other things I have blocked.
I thought we'd be able to work through it, because I was willing to acknowledge that our marriage had been limping along, but he just wanted to pretend that it had never happened, and refused to take any responsibility. Then he also kept up with his shady behavior, and I was done shortly after that. Honestly, I wished he'd gotten kicked out of the Navy because of a drug charge, because I would have divorced him immediately instead of fucking around for a year thinking we were fixing the marriage.

When I decided that I was willing to stay and work on the marriage, I also gave myself the right to change my mind at any time for any reason, or even for no reason at all. If you decide to stay, be aware that you have the right to pull the plug at any time, and the reasons only have to make sense to you. Anyone in your life that's less than supportive needs to go away.

[angieawesome]

Jan 6, 2016 19:43:15 GMT -5 mcgee said:

When I found out my ex was having an affair, he immediately said he wanted to go to counseling and make the marriage work. We immediately went into counseling, and I was pretty adamant that I needed to know the entire scope of the problem (he'd been on Ashley Madison and a few other sites) before I'd be able to move on, and that I needed him to be honest with me. A friend confided around that time that she'd taken her husband back after an affair, and he'd cheated on her again, and that if it happened one more time she was out of there. I was really afraid of that happening to me, and I really NEEDED him to be honest with me about just how bad this situation was, so I threw down an ultimatum and said that I was willing to give him another chance, but that if I caught him lying again, I was done. He balked at therapy when the therapist tried to get him to see just how much damage he'd done to the marriage and that no matter how unhappy he was, he had an obligation to come to me and try to improve the situation, rather than cheat. "I want to make it work" lasted all of two weeks when I caught him in another lie. When I called him on it, he threw in the towel and said he wanted out.

Some people on these boards referred me to surviving infidelity at the time, but I honestly didn't like it. It was almost too much negative energy, and too many people preaching that you had to handle adultery in THIS particular way, or I guess terrible things would happen, IDK. It just really rubbed me the wrong way. It might be a better fit for you though. Regardless, see a therapist just on your own, go to counseling with your spouse. In the meantime, talk to a lawyer, look at your options, put some money aside in case you need to get out in a hurry. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

I'm so sorry that you're dealing with this.

I checked out this site at the time and honestly, living a life of constantly checking his phone, email, etc, sounded so exhausting to me. I couldn't live like that.

[Mrs.Rad888]

Jan 6, 2016 22:49:23 GMT -5 angieawesome said:

Jan 6, 2016 19:43:15 GMT -5 mcgee said:

When I found out my ex was having an affair, he immediately said he wanted to go to counseling and make the marriage work. We immediately went into counseling, and I was pretty adamant that I needed to know the entire scope of the problem (he'd been on Ashley Madison and a few other sites) before I'd be able to move on, and that I needed him to be honest with me. A friend confided around that time that she'd taken her husband back after an affair, and he'd cheated on her again, and that if it happened one more time she was out of there. I was really afraid of that happening to me, and I really NEEDED him to be honest with me about just how bad this situation was, so I threw down an ultimatum and said that I was willing to give him another chance, but that if I caught him lying again, I was done. He balked at therapy when the therapist tried to get him to see just how much damage he'd done to the marriage and that no matter how unhappy he was, he had an obligation to come to me and try to improve the situation, rather than cheat. "I want to make it work" lasted all of two weeks when I caught him in another lie. When I called him on it, he threw in the towel and said he wanted out.

Some people on these boards referred me to surviving infidelity at the time, but I honestly didn't like it. It was almost too much negative energy, and too many people preaching that you had to handle adultery in THIS particular way, or I guess terrible things would happen, IDK. It just really rubbed me the wrong way. It might be a better fit for you though. Regardless, see a therapist just on your own, go to counseling with your spouse. In the meantime, talk to a lawyer, look at your options, put some money aside in case you need to get out in a hurry. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

I'm so sorry that you're dealing with this.

I checked out this site at the time and honestly, living a life of constantly checking his phone, email, etc, sounded so exhausting to me. I couldn't live like that.

I never looked at that website, but if that's how they're suggesting people live their lives, that's not living at all. I can understand expecting your SO to be transparent while it's still raw, but if you can't get past it and trust them enough to not have to check their phone, etc., then you haven't really gotten over it. And I'm not saying that you have to get over it, but it seems to me that if you can't , it's time to move on.
That was actually one of the things that made me realize XH and I were done; the fact that I knew I'd never trust him again.

[mcgee]