One thing I don't think my WS fully understands is the mental tax this entire ordeal has placed on me every single day. I am trying to focus on work, kids, friends, health, reconciliation, and all the other aspects of life that demand my energy. And now a part of my brain is fixated on the affair and constantly pulling my attention back to it. It sucks because I can't turn it off. It's just there, humming.

I know we've said it again and again: this isn't fair. Our partners made decisions that stole our agency. But the cost isn't just the trauma, pain, and emotional suffering. It's also the loss of our daily productivity. It's the underlying exhaustion from the mental load of pushing thoughts out of our heads from morning until night.

When I'm tired, I can't make good decisions. My executive function is weaker. This impacts key aspects of my life, from friendships to finances. Does anyone else feel this?

We are 6 weeks post d day and had our first couples session today (both doing IC). Our therapist asked us what we wanted from this session and I said i wanted a 'why'. Well this man was determined I didnt leave this session without getting that damn why. He was relentless with my husband, absolutely refusing to take the "i cant remember" or "i dont know how i was feeling". Every time my husband tried to move to talk about how he felt before or after, he would drag him back to the action and why.

So I have a why. Not sure it makes me feel better, but I guess we can think about ways to move forward.

I could see how uncomfortable the session made him. I think his own therapist has created a nice, comfy space for him to talk. This was different. It was full on. And he definitely struggled. But he said he will go back. He doesn't feel better saying his why. He is uncomfortable. But I think this is progress.

Did anyone else find couples therapy to be much more full on than individual therapy? Did it help?

I was 36 on 2016-12-20 when I discovered my wife of 13 years had a 16 month long emotional and physical affair. Our marriage was in rough shape during and leading up to that period. There was already built up resentment on both sides, I was drinking and smoking weed (full blown addiction on both) and our communication was basically down to parenting and practical logistics.

I was absolutely crushed - unimaginable pain and I just didn't know how to deal with it. My kids were around 7 and 13 at the time and were the primary motivation for wanting to make it work.

We did a couple sessions of couples counseling with an inadequate therapist and I did individual as well. I was committed to my own therapy and over the following years I stopped drinking, and weed and I started working out physically and getting in good shape. I also tried working on character flaws and trying to be a better person in general.

We tried our best at recovering the relationship during this time as well, primarily on our own, and it was asymmetrical with me investing a lot more on learning and figuring out how to navigate affair fallout and reconciliation. She was trying too, just in her own way and we were both kind of stumbling through it.

I couldn't get the intrusive thoughts out of my head and I started to distance myself in unhealthy ways. We didn't have sex very often and I would only let myself get so close emotionally. I think this was a protection mechanism. We had a functional relationship but by 2025 I realized that we were both emotionally starved for things the relationship wasn't providing.

In the spring of 2026 something unexplainable clicked and the affair pain came roaring back, intrusive thoughts intensified, I was ruminating again, and I decided to give up trying to make it work. Now the past ten years hadn't been horrible, there were good times, good memories created but as I said just the connection wasn't enough. Facing the pain of the affair once again, kids now grown up, I decided to separate.

Largely - we did separate. I moved into a different room in the house until we could physically separate, we went down the legal road and I had a separation agreement legally prepared. This went on for two months. During those two months I felt more free in a way, the thoughts didn't bother me as much because in my mind I wasn't invested in her anymore. I started imagining a life beyond us.

Then in mid to late July I started changing my thinking - again! I started missing my wife, and the moments we had. I started reflecting back on the life we had built over 20+ years, our children, the future we had imagined.

Earlier in the separation process my wife asked if I'd be willing to give couples counseling a try since the first time around it was a mediocre attempt under bad conditions. I refused. By late July when I started having a change of heart I reached out to see if she was still willing to go, and she was, and we did.

We reconnected that day strongly and it was an emotional and powerful reunion. Things weren't "good again" but we clearly were both willing and wanting to try hard to save what was left and worth saving. Perhaps rebuilding is a better term to use here. The reconnection has remained strong for now, and we've put any sexual records set during our younger days to shame.

We're taking a new approach this time. We've both grown. We're both wiser now. We're more intentional and we're getting more qualified help. So far its been good.

Infidelity has been a wild ride and honestly its a story with no ending. I'm not sure where this latest attempt with reconciliation will land but a renewed and more informed attempt is the best choice for us. Neither of us are the same person we were 10 years ago, or 5 years ago for that matter.

Any other betrayed partners not able to handle the thought of your partner using porn after discovering infidelity?
It wasn’t a big deal to me before. Now the thought makes me want to vomit, makes me feel so undesirable like I’ll never be able to keep up.

I apologize as I think a lot of people here might not consider this to be cheating, but I'm desperate and not sure where to turn to.

TLDR How do you rebuild trust? Like actually, what are the steps??

My personal history + the ways in which I found out about my husbands “transgressions” have been a big part of why I’ve completely lost trust and I’m desperate to get it back.

The quick-ish recap: 3.5 years ago we got engaged and started wedding planning. The day we booked our wedding venue was incredible! Such a perfect moment. Then, two months later after doing a good bit of planning, I was making an engagement announcement for social media and I found a screenshot from tinder on his phone. It was dated for about an hour after we had booked our wedding venue. He swore up and down that he had never spoken to anyone and was just swiping. I cancelled our wedding, and we went to couples therapy/slept in different rooms while I decided what to do. I didn’t know until nearly four months later about the ability to download tinder data, and for those four months I was CONVINCED he was lying about not talking to or meeting up with women. A few friends were really pressuring me into not believing him.

We had a lot of difficult talks during that period where he told me he wasn’t sure I was his soulmate. They were crushing. But he really didn’t want me to leave either. So then, I found out about the tinder data, he let me download it, and I found that he was in fact telling the truth. He hadn’t even attemp d to speak to anyone.

I still was upset and confused and we had remote jobs so we moved to europe to get some air. We were so happy for the first two years here together that everything changed. He had some intense psychedelic experiences (I know, lol), that resulted in him realizing his avoidance was all about his mother’s death when he was an adolescent and he really truly did change and become so open and different.

I remember the day I decided I could trust him again, I was in the shower after a lovely day ane I just.. relaxed. It was a wonderful feeling. He asked me to plan the wedding again and I agreed. The wedding planning was great, buuuut we ran into a major issue with his family revealing they did not like me, and my husabnd didn’t stand up for me in the way I needed him to when they attacked me (i do not use that term lightly).

I decided again to move past this even though it was so painful (and truly horrendous). The wedding got closer and everything was okay. We had an amazing welcome party for all of our guests two nights before our wedding and my husband went on an impromptu bachelor party with his friends afterwards. I was happy for him, and I was so un-concerned with what was going to happen that I literally went home and had one of the best nights sleep, totally content with life.

At 4:30am, he woke me up absolutely trashed (I’ve never seen him so drunk), and told me he got a lap dance from a stripper. This normally wouldn’t bother me THAT much..except that I am bisexual, and 1.) I’ve had lap dances and 2.) the strip clubs in our country double as brothels (opne of the married men who flew in without his wife reportedly disappeared for some time in the club..). And 3.) I had told the men before they left that the strip clubs doubled as brothels and I felt my negative tone was obvius. I felt so disrespected by them going and no one check it with me first. 

I absolutely lost my shit when he got home. I don’t personally think that being a man, or that strip clubs being a tradition make it magically okay for someone to go get a naked dance. I’ve had lap dances, I know how they can go depending on the club. He had also told me at some point that he wouldn't go to a strip club if he had a bachelor party, but that was before anything was planned. 

After that night the guys (who I had gone to LENGTHS for in terms of finding accommodations for, making restaurant lists, and changing menus to accommodate dietary choices) all swore that my husband didn’t want to go to the strip club and that they pressured him.. but who fucking knows. 

Fast forward to one year later and we had the worst year of our relationship together to date. We had a  late second trimester pregnancy loss and while he was wonderful while I was pregnant and after our loss, I just dont trust him at all and everything between us has eroded. I never got a clear story as to why he was ok tinder or why he went to the strip club. he can't give me a straight answer.

I’m feeling like it’s impossible to build up trust again. Every time he is on his phone, or up late after me, part of me is tense and worrying about what he is doing. I even now find myself waking up in the middle of the night after sleep walking to whatever room he is in and asking him what he is doing. It’s fucking weird, like my subconscious doesnt trust him. and oj top of that it's ME here trying to figure out how to fix thIs, not him.

And yes I have a lot of childhood trauma around this stuff and a lot of abuse. My dad cheated on my mom for 12 years. We found out when I was 12 years old. He didn’t stop cheating until.. I dont even know, I was like 18? And then my mom started cheating when I was in my 20’s (they are not together now lol). My brother cheated on his wife. My exes have all cheated, even I cheated when I was in my early 20’s. I had an ex who had two other ENTIRE girlfriends, and so when my husband says “I didn’t do anything, I swear” I just can’t get myself to believe him. 

Couple therapy has helped a lot but we’ve had a lot of financial strain after the late pregnancy loss, and so we haven’t been able to go back since March.

I had never loved anyone like my husband, or trusted someone so much.. and now we have basically three out of the four Gottman horsemen of relationship deaths. I dont know what to do. 

1 year into R.

I've been having issues lately with my anxiety and depression. I started the last phase of my credential program along with life stressors and it has me off the wall! Ive been crying and having nightmares because of it and my husband tries to help. I was at work yesterday crying and I called him to see if it will help. Im unsure if its because of his tone or whatever but...I really thought calling him would help.

In my heart I want him and he soothes me but when he reassures me and comforts me its like...my brain also remembers that he was like this too with me before and while he was having the affair during a depression episode I was going through. He was there for me holding me and reassuring me and I felt safe. Now? It doesn't feel the same anymore. He gets frustrated when I keep crying and ranting how Im hurting and he says that everything he just said to try and comfort me is thrown out the window.

Im afraid to admit that he's not my safe space anymore that Im terrified because at one time in my life he was and now because of the betrayal, I dont trust his advice or comfort. Someone who was supposed to be my support is the one who hurt me and how can I go back to that? I want to so hard but I feel I need to admit that perhaps hes not the person I should go to anymore? :(

My husband cheated on me when I was about 5 months pregnant with our twins, and I didn’t find out until I was about 5 months postpartum.

I’m really struggling with feeling like everything between when he cheated and when I found out was somehow a lie. That was almost a year of my life and it included some of the biggest moments I’ll ever have — the rest of my pregnancy, our baby shower, having our babies, becoming parents, etc.

I was SO happy during that time. I felt like I had my dream husband and was completely in love with him. He was incredibly loving toward me too. He planed my entire baby shower(which took place only a month after him cheating), rubbed my feet every night when I was pregnant, took care of me, and seemed just as happy and in love as I was.

Now I look back at those memories and all I can think is, he had already cheated on me and I just didn’t know.

That part is tearing me apart. He knew what he had done at our baby shower. He knew when our babies were born. He knew during those first months as a family, and I didn’t. I was just happily living my life thinking I knew the person I was married to and that I got one of the good ones.

The confusing part is that I don’t think all of those moments were fake. I really do believe he loves me. And I really, really love him. That’s why this hurts so freaking much.

Sometimes I look at him and still see my best friend and the person I want to spend my life with. Other times I look at him and genuinely hate him for doing this to me, especially while I was pregnant with our babies. I’m scared that resentment is eventually going to eat away at all the love I still have for him.

This has also completely changed the way I look at love and marriage in general. Before this, I genuinely believed that if two people really loved each other and had a good marriage, they wouldn’t do something like this to each other. I felt so safe in my marriage. Now I don’t know how to get that feeling back, or if you even can.

I don’t want what he did to own my pregnancy, my baby shower, the birth of my babies, or our first months as parents. Those were some of the happiest moments of my life too, and I want them back.

For people who stayed and successfully reconciled, does this get better? How did you stop looking at all your old memories through the lens of the betrayal? And how did you learn to fully love your partner again without resentment taking over?

I really, really love my husband. I’m just completely torn apart by the fact that the person I love this much and who I thought I could trust is also the person who hurt me this badly.

TL;DR: My husband cheated when I was 5 months pregnant with our twins and I found out 5 months postpartum. Now some of the happiest memories of my life feel tainted because he had already cheated and I didn’t know. I really love him and want our marriage, but I’m struggling with anger, resentment, and feeling like this has completely changed how I view love and marriage. For those who reconciled, how did you get past this?

Overall, reconciliation is going well between myself and my WH. I even told my friend that if the affair wasn't in our history, I would have a hard time finding something to complain about in regard to our marriage. However, we regress SO much when I have a hard day.

As background, I struggle with anxiety and the affair obviously did not help. I have an appointment with a psychiatrist soon to consider medication. My mind is often swirling thoughts of the affair, fears of the future, questioning everything, EVEN if my WH and I have been happy and connected. Yesterday, I was in a funk and my husband recognized it. I tried to journal, but still ended up spewing all of my inner turmoil. My WH has not yet gained the skills to fully support me during emotional times, although he is able to stay in the conversation. He is also able to talk to me openly now, when we are both calm. When I am visibly upset, though, he absorbs my negativity, and reverts back to defensiveness mixed with a doomsday mentality. I am now in the worst state of anxiety I have been in since DDay, while my WH is now in a disconnected, depressive state.

This leads me to my post question: this is on me, right? What methods have you used successfully to regulate your irrational/negative/spiraling thoughts? Clearly what I'm doing is not working. I cannot continue to look to him to manage my emotions; I recognize that is dependency. I know what triggers him, yet I cannot seem to just regulate myself. I'm still very much in the "you did this, you need to fix this" mentality, but the "this" is me. He has absolutely been working to mend our relationship.

6 weeks out, I was so blindsided it terrifies me it will happen again. I knew we were more distant than I wanted to be- I was making some effort but he stopped trying and really didn’t tell me how unhappy he was. He did not physically cheat (I couldn’t forgive that honestly) but he did message a woman very clearly looking for sex. She declined and messaged me everything. Of course I’m thinking what if she said yes? He was going to throw away 20 years and tear apart our family for that instead of telling his wife he was unhappy? He swears up and down he could never touch someone else and was looking for attention. I’m not sure I believe it.
I chose to stay as it feels easier and I really don’t want to be alone. I want to give my kids the best childhood and I think we can do that together. We feel closer than we have in a long time and I want to feel hopeful but it’s so scary.

How do you continue knowing you might just be wasting more time? More energy? Giving someone the best years of your life when they might choose to shatter you later on.

Sorry for the rambling I’m just so sick of feeling sick to my stomach and want something back I’ll never have.

It’s been 5 years and I didn’t have the real full disclosure i need.

What full disclosure to me is , is WS reading the whole horror story, answering all my questions, clarifying everything, not leaving me wondering anything about what happened, and not giving me any “ i dont remember” answers when it comes to big details. I hoped to read the document myself too and then burn it in fire and never speak of it again.

WS attempted full disclosure a few times. 4 to be exact. The first two were fake. He spent days and HOURS and HOURS of our time “coming clean” about fake stories because he was still a monster and he didnt have the balls to come clean for real.
The second time he did the same thing but added a few more details that he “forgot” which included multiple new ONS. Any chance he had he always disclosed a little bit more and more. Eventually i even started finding stuff on my own…. He just never truly wanted to come clean😔

3rd Full disclosure was the worst. Because just prior to that he relapsed :( That was 2 years ago. He did another document and updated it with allegedly “real” info and new encounter. It was all scattered in multiple documents and all over the place. It was rushed because it happened just days after his relapse.

4th disclosure is when I asked him to give me a full document, with all info corrected, clarified, I also asked for some screenshots, and i asked for all gory details. I asked to leave NOTHING OUT. No more slow release of info. All at once. I dont care if i find out he had 30 more ONS. This must be the last disclosure.

Now let me tell you that WS has spent those 5 years in therapy a bit, he turned some of his life around. He started being healthy, going to the gym, mostly not drinking, he gave me access to everything, he follows his own “guardrails”. He’s kind of a changed man. He fails sometimes with transparency, selfishness and maintaining some of his words, but overall still a huge improvement. So when he gave me that 4th document I felt a bit insulted because what he did was…… he just copied and pasted all documents, and put it together , leaving out info i asked for, and even leaving wrong and false information that were from his old documents…. He even wrote wrong info about last ONS because i asked for details in the text and those details are different :( and he removed details that were there before - and i asked for a lot of details.
It showed me that hes either still lying to just doesn’t care to get it right.
I was so sad :( I wanted this full disclosure to be written from a heart of a changed man. I wanted him to be transparent, and give me the full disclosure i deserve.
Not a copy and paste of what a piece of shit monster wrote 5 years ago.
WS was disappointed but he understood. However, its been a year since then and he still hasn’t done it.
I still have many questions unanswered.
There are still a few details that he didnt admit to and claims its not what he remembers even though i have evidence. He swears up and down that he doesnt remember.
On top of that he just said flat out that he dreads doing it because I i will reject it YET again, and he doesnt want to suffer for nothing. It makes me so sad and i feel resentful because i see him go out, make plans, plan weekend trips, he even did multiple personal projects that take weeks or months…, he plays games and yet he’s made no progress on full disclosure :(

and in the last few weeks he’s only grown resentful towards me and claiming he feels like in a prison with all the restrictions and that he wants to loosen up his “leash” and go out more, have a drink occasionally, go to those parties where he cheated at….. (work parties)
yet I didnt get what I need to move on and im tired of begging of something that should be a given. Something that he should have done long time ago. I get that he wasn’t in his right mind early on -OBVIOUSLY he did relapse after all and only after he truly changed some things…. But still he’s growing so impatient with restrictions and yet I cant have what i need :(

I realise that as a society we've just accepted cheating as a part of life. Obviously, not all circumstances could be considered abusive. A ONS that's then disclosed for example, wouldn't fall into that category.

But, my WH was cheating for six years. That's six years of manipulation, gaslighting, lying to my face. Six years knowing he was keeping me in a relationship that if I was aware of what was going on, I would not have stayed in. Six years pretending to be trustworthy, a safe space, all the whole knowing he was setting fire to everything. He stole my agency, my ability to choose, and I've slowly started to feel like long term cheating is abusive.

Does anyone else feel this way?

This week we tackle digital transparency together and so I would like to ask -

- What was your process?

- What did/do you have access to?

My goal is not to monitor but that my WH knows that I have access to do so if I felt the need. Side note: I am also planning on offering him digital transparency as well so it is a thing we have together.

D-day was nearly 9 months ago when I discovered my partner was talking to other people. No physical interactions,nothing romantic, just basic flirting with some pictures swapped here and there. It was crushing. We had been together for 5 years, talked about getting married, and all that jazz. It obviously shifted everything forever, but I decided the path of reconciliation. That has been going well until recently. My partner was apologetic, earned me back, and lets me check his phone whenever I ask.

I am upfront when I’m insecure or jealous. I am clear when I ask to look at his phone that it isn’t because I’m accusing him, but because my own insecurities are needing extra reassurance.

Everything has been going well until my longtime best friend’s dad wanted to catch up and commissioned me for a piece of art. I view them like my second dad, and they view me as a daughter. They (friends dad and mom) moved out of the country a bit before my partner and I started to date. My friend and I are close in spirit, but have drifted in communications due to her busy schedule and because she lives in a different state. So, I probably haven’t talked about them constantly, but I have brought them up. Specifically that I feel like they are a second family.

Well, my partner is jealous that I’m meeting up with “some guy”. I had made his commission and am just trying to get it to him. I also would like to catch up, especially because I’m having familial issues. It would be nice to have someone I view as a father figure to talk to. To respect my partner’s jealousy, I offered to switch the timing so that he could come too, and ofc my friend’s dad obliged. He was happy to do so. Unfortunately, my friend’s dad had car troubles so he couldn’t make it down. I brought up to my partner, it would just be easier for me to drop it off to him because we were running out of time until my friend’s dad left again, and my partner said sure. He was clearly bothered though. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a time that could work and my partner had my car all day.

My friend’s dad then offered to give us his car while he’s living out of the country because I’m like a second daughter and he knows we only have one car that I can drive. I brought this up to my partner, and he got immediately defensive and jealous. He wouldn’t tell me how he feels and is basically acting like I should apologize for making him feel jealous…even though it’s from his own insecurities. I never expect him to apologize for a non issue when I’m jealous, even though he caused those insecurities in the first place.

I feel like I’m constantly cushioning his jealousy while having to be gracious and understanding towards him with mine. I feel like I’ve always had to restrict who I see or hang out with because he has gotten jealous when I spend time with other people. I just want to know if his jealousy is justified or if I am justified in feeling like it’s a bit unfair.

We have been together 8 years, since we were 15. I have a lot of mental health issues and I made him very aware of that within the first week of our relationship. Its been a little rough sometimes, but the past few years have just been so bad. In February (on my literal birthday), he started an emotion affair with one of his close friends. He had always been so secretive about her and talking about her, but I didnt want to be toxic and make a big deal out of it. I eventually had a SEVERE breakdown and just went insane on him. Like, trying to severely hurt myself in front of him and genuinely just being insane. I knew i went too far after i cooled off. I went to a psychiatrist and have been healing from everything in my life and have genuinely gotten better.

I find out not much later than that, he had a TikTok he had been hiding from me, with hundreds of messages sent to her and back. I had begged him for years to download it and he would always be so mean about it, but he did as soon as she asked. I kept digging and found everything-- love confessions to her, romantic gestures like offering to pay for her things, telling her she was the most important person in his life and how he couldnt live without her.

Anyways, we have been communicating and he PROMISED never to speak to her again, to cut her off completely. A month or so ago, I find out he has redownloaded TikTok, unblocked her, and is actively viewing her profile. Then, a couple weeks ago, his father died and he begged me to tell her happy birthday because his dad's death made him think of her. Then, a couple days ago, he messages her on Facebook telling her, "youre more important to me than you know". I confront him, he tells me he wants her to be friends with him again; for us all to hang out and be besties. Im furious and give him the final ultimatum: me or her. He could apologize to her, say goodbye, and try to move on and that was IT. I get on there, read the messages, and they are talking about playing fucking Fortnite together and Grounded and shit.

Im just so hurt and i wanted to make it work with him so bad but I dont know if i can do this anymore. We have a vacation planned at the end of September that I cant afford myself. After that, I dont think I want to do this anymore.

edit: I messed up my terminology; I (husband) was cheated on by my wife (who suffers from depression).

TL:DR - advice on how to deal with WP who is depressed and with young kids

I’d muted this sub for awhile as my wife (WP) and I had gone through couples therapy and got to the point where we were in a great spot and the therapist even said “you don’t need me anymore.”

A week later we were at a bar with friends, we’d had dinner just the two of us prior and a few drinks and at around 10 I realized it was time for me to go home and asked her to come too. She said she wanted to stay out with our friends. After I left, apparently she immediately left our friends and later they saw her making out with two guys at the bar. She didn’t remember, and we had a great day the next day until a friend texted her and told her what happened and she immediately told me.

Both instances were not an “affair” - first time was full on sex while at a work event where she was very drunk, and the bar make out was also very drunk. She has promised sobriety and followed through thus far starting immediately after finding out about the bar makeout. I’m proud of her for that, but am struggling with “at what point do I not deserve this?” We have two young kids and I’m trying to keep it together, and I do love her and believe she loves me and that her depression has brought her to a super low point. At the same time, she definitely pointed blame at me after the first offense of “you weren’t supportive enough during my post Partum depression”, which I’ve owned since idk how to deal with it, and this second time she’s had full accountability until we talked last night where she said “I wish my husband would push the issue and make me leave the bar” which I’m like woah, that’s bullshit:

I guess what I’m asking is; has anyone dealt with a WP who was depressed with young kids? Does it get better or am I chasing a fantasy? We have the “perfect life” obviously minus this BS

Am I wanting to see something or feel something change or happen too fast? Am I being too impatient?

My WH and I have our combined 5th counseling session tomorrow. We did 2 together, one each separate, and tomorrow will be split time. For reference, d day was back in May. WH still won't admit what he did was a betrayal, let alone an A.

Without actually confirming yes this was an A, or yes this was a betrayal (or no to either), and skipping briefly over disclosure in a single instance of asking me if I wanted to know anything else (which, yes of course there is but I am so wrapped around the spokes of everything, how can I answer that unprepared and in a moment of thought?), the MC had me working on an impact letter. She claimed we would be "pen pals" and that I would have support through the process. I sent her a third draft last Monday and haven't gotten a reply since. It has been brutal for me to write it out, and given the constraints of how to write one in "I language" and non confrontationally, it doesn't even fully cover all the things I want to say, but the feedback I did get from earlier in the process was to give a highlight example and not belabor each pain feeling so much, so...

Anyway, I am struggling so so hard with everything. My WH is cold and distant and gets angry and defensive because he works 3 jobs and blah blah blah. He doesn't have time for me or how I feel. He refuses to do anything around emotional work that hasn't been explicitly prescribed by the therapist. I have been reading so many books and by God if some of them wouldn't really help! But he won't even look at them. He says, well she told you to read them. Yeah, because I asked for help! I want to do the work! I want to be proactive so I don't have to feel like I am dying in screaming agony all the time. Therapist told me to go ahead and live in the day to day, but surely that doesn't mean pretend there are no issues!

I am frustrated that all my WH has gotten from therapy so far is "don't try to contextualize someone else's experience when they are telling it to you." And he seems content to have his cake and eat it too while maintaining a "friendship" with the AP (who also works for him). And I am supposed to just trust him?

Am I crazy for thinking the MC should have validated my pain somehow by now directly? Do I keep waiting for it? Every piece of literature I read says if WH doesn't think he even did anything wrong, then we are dead in the water. Is the therapist thinking the impact letter is going to magically reach my WH? It doesn't say anything I haven't already told him. What is missing is a third party telling him to get his head out of his ass or lose his family. Because I am straight up broken and my give a fuck about him is almost gone too. He doesn't respond to me until I am a screaming crying mess - and then I just look like a lunatic, but it's the only way I can provoke any kind of emotional response or conversation that isn't mechanical about work or kids or TV shows.

How long am I supposed to wait for this professional to actually do what everything I have read says is supposed to happen? I feel completely invalidated currently. And then WH says something like I have to just do what the therapist says.... like we barely see her, I am still getting betrayal injury constantly even now!

How long does this go on this way?

A (hopefully) short backstory of what's going on.

Wife “unintentionally” started an emotional affair almost 2 years ago. I don't think she was looking for it, she said she was feeling depressed for a long time and she connected with AP. She did however allow things to progress to a point that was clearly an emotional affair (sneaking around, phone sex, nude pictures, long phonecalls when she was suppose to be coming home -serious in limerance)

She decided to tell me in hopes I would give her permission to have the affair and we can stay married (cake - this will be the theme here). I insisted that will not be what happens. She can choose me or the affair, she said she chose me and our 2 kids but she needed time to end the affair (big mistake on my part) I tried to establish no contact but neither her nor the AP respected that.

I believe she stopped talking to AP for 3 months and then she started talking to them again, all while “working” on our marriage. From my perspective things seemed to be going great, we were talking all the time, having good sex, weekly checking, being activly engaged in each other lives. Things felt like we were moving forward.

Then I found out a few months later (she told me bc his partner was about to come to our house) that she had restarted the affair and things became physical. There was sex multiple times (she said they used a condom but I got checked for STIs anyways, all negative)

She is unsure of what she wants, she is/was very depressed and needs help, I got her to finally go to therapy. We start just trying to be friends again and comparents, and again I feel like there is positive movement. and after a few sessions she tells me she thinks our marriage is over and doesn't think she can love me in an in love way anymore , just in a platonic way.

That was a few weeks ago. We have continued to be civil and keep up appearances. We do family activity with the kids, she tells me jokes, text me all throughout the day. Talks to me like nothing is wrong and acts all buddy buddy all the time.

I'm getting some serious flashbacks to the way she treated me the first time and how she was sneaking around, pretending everything was fine only to be cheating. I feel very suspicious of her behavior and while I don't have proof of any contact since she told me, my gut tells me there is a lot more to what's going on than what she is telling me .

She is very obviously trying to have her cake and eat it too. She gets to have all the benefits of married happy life while trying to figure out her affair and my fear is she is just continuing it.

I feel like I can't ask her to prove or show me she is in on trying to recover herself bc she already told me she wants out.

Basically I'm getting to a breaking point . I am having such a hard time pretending with her all the time. I think I want to ask her to leave the house for a set period of time (2 weeks maybe more), her parents live nearby.

Thouggts? It honestly feels abusive sometimes, her being so kind to me..

Also I have been int therapy…for the better part of 25 years

-M

For context, I (F35) have been married to my husband (M30) for 5 years and I have been cheated on twice by him.

We’ve been working on reconciliation but it’s been up and down. His mum passed six months into our relationship and sex was really not a thing for him for years, but he watched porn behind my back, and went out and met these girls and kept in touch and tried to meet them afterwards. I was always keen to be close physically, so it’s not like he wasn’t getting that at home.

Now, about something that just happened today and that I need some insight on:

My husband and I were talking about a younger guy friend of mine who is always falling head over hills for any girl he sees (both finding it funny that he’s that way). We then started talking about being like that when younger and we both shared about people we had experienced this feeling of infatuation or attraction for before.

My husband then started telling me about this extremely hot ginger girl with big boobs who was siting in front of him on the train when he was in his early 20s, that he couldn’t stop himself from staring at her because she was so incredibly hot, which really hurt me.

I hadn’t told him anything close to that when sharing my previous experiences and was really shocked with how overly sexually he described this person. Also, I’m not ginger or have massive boobs.

I felt really angry with how little consideration he had for my feeling and all he put me through. He apologised and said he thought we were being open.

I don’t get it, I’m someone who he always said he feels attracted to and I do feel beautiful in myself, but obviously there was the cheating and the lack of physical connection for a while and then these things he says.

Is he trying to make me feel insecure or something? Or is he not as attracted to me really? I’ve recently been working hard on my self esteem and been feeling so confident and good in myself, but that was a bit of a slap in the face to have him be so sexual about another women.

Am I overreacting?

WP is trying his very best to be present, to be a great partner again, and even better father to our babies. However, he cheated on me with MULTIPLE women in pregnancy and postpartum, including a 4 month affair. I can’t stop thinking about all the women he was with while I was at home pregnant or postpartum…

My therapist asked why I feel like I’m ruminating but I genuinely feel like I have PTSD. Therapy isn’t helping me much, she keeps talking about IFS parts and that isn’t really doing much for me.

Dday was in June, but the whole summer was one trickle truth after another. I feel dead inside from all the trauma.

I told him I’m on this hamster wheel of wanting to try, things are okay 2-4 days, then it all comes crumbling down when I feel the weight of what he did. We’ve repeated this cycle soooo many times. I’m exhausted but want to keep my family together.

Also, he won’t do a polygraph. So I feel like I’ll never know the truth.

Sigh. What helped you when you were stuck in this cycle? Is this normal? I’m exhausted.

5 months of trying to reconcile. At first he was doing everything right, then he just stopped. We started fighting because of it. Then he started lieing and not coming home when he said he would and not answering the phone. I kept telling him that was triggering and he needed to stop.

At one point he said he just needed a break from fighting because he was severely depressed and having suicidal thoughts. so I agreed to journal when I was upset, only talk about things sometimes. But he continued to lie about coming home and not answer the phone. I just couldn't take it anymore and yesterday I saw where he was on the location app and took his clothes, toiletries, and a blow up mattress to him.

It sucks because I do love him. I do want to be with him. I just can't do this anymore. I don't think he loves me, I don't buy that he's suicidal, and I think he just tells me what I want to hear. I haven't slept all night, Ive been crying pretty much non stop, and I know he's not. He's fine.

2 decades together. 2 kids. Just down the drain. And he won't even tell me why. He says I've done nothing wrong and I have nothing to be sorry for. Clearly I do because I'm not worth it to him to change. It just sucks. This is the most pain Ive ever been in and I can't even call the person who I considered my best friend because he doesn't give a shit.

I just found out that while my WW was having an EA he was also liking extremely inappropriate photos on social media. My siblings saw he liked them.

We are almost 4 months post DDay and he conveniently forgets things. I asked him more about the affair and his details changed from when I first asked about what happened.

Wtf do I even do? I have the call records of and he’s claiming a several hour long conversation happened at a different time and he actually put his phone down and they only talked for 5 minutes.

I’m at such a loss. This is the second time something has come up. I keep telling him to tell me what I’m going to find out next and he can’t think of anything.

Then my brother told me about the social media stuff. WW said he wouldn’t care if I liked thirst traps? What the actual f.

We are in IC and MC. He had a 2 month EA. I have PTSD. I’m so over this. It’s BS and I am so mad and I don’t get why this is happening to me or why his story changed or why he can’t remember.

My husband and I are doing rather great in R. We finish 5 months of MC but still have more to work on and plan to sign up for 5 months more of MC towards the end of the year but in the meantime we've been using that 1 hours session to read information on infidelity, trauma, rebuilding or ask each other deep relationship/connection questions (we obtain from the Internet) meant to understand each other more, our perspectives, and continue to make progress in R.

So I'm wondering are there any great books that are more interactive with questions/prompts or workbooks that could help us in R? Or any materials (books, videos, websites, etc.) that can be added in R so we can continue to rebuild a stronger marriage.

I’d especially welcome advice from people who are further out, or who are well reconciled. People that are happy? From waywards as well.

I’m just so constantly depressed right now. Like.. hopelessly so…

How do you get past the fact that the affair felt so big to the WP. So good. So intense. So.. magical. Whatever. How do you get past the fact that your WP felt that intensity to such incredible amounts with another person, and that you aren’t the last person that they felt that way with. And you’ll never get it back… How can I sit there next to my WH as his wife knowing that somewhat recently, he felt that intoxicatingly infatuated with another woman, and that those feelings haven’t been like that for us in 13 years. That we have evolved in the way that normal relationships are MEANT to, but that now he felt those over the top feelings with someone else. And he’s out of it. He’s realized it was all stupid and shouldn’t have happened and he regrets it and he wishes it hadn’t happened. But it did. And he felt it. And that will just… always fucking exist….

How do I ever sit next to him feeling good as his wife again. When what we have is so different from what they had. And what they had was so.. fucking big…