If you stayed with your cheating spouse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I tried for a year. Didn’t work.

Can you say why? I ask because I found out my spouse cheated a few months ago. We are now in counseling but I have little faith I can get past it. He seems apologetic enough, he ended that affair, and wants to save our marriage. What I’m struggling with is he didn’t want to save our marriage before the affair. So he got to have his fun for a year instead of working on us. So now it’s 1000 times harder to get past the affair and work on us at the same time. And it would devestate me to work on it for a year and still the marriage fail.

[Anonymous]

I am a recently re-married DH. Found a great girl. My ex cheated on me, repeatedly, with the same guy (who she's now married to, btw). We tried reconciling for about 1.5 years and each time we tried, she just kept going back to him. I reached a point where I said enough. The only thing holding me back was our kids. I got to the point where I said enough.

I do agree in that women seem to be more tolerant of cheating men than men of cheating women. I don't know if it's some deeply embedded genetic makeup or what, but there is a difference (double standard?).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I tried for a year. Didn’t work.

Can you say why? I ask because I found out my spouse cheated a few months ago. We are now in counseling but I have little faith I can get past it. He seems apologetic enough, he ended that affair, and wants to save our marriage. What I’m struggling with is he didn’t want to save our marriage before the affair. So he got to have his fun for a year instead of working on us. So now it’s 1000 times harder to get past the affair and work on us at the same time. And it would devestate me to work on it for a year and still the marriage fail.

If there is a clear end of the affair and he is fully committed to making it work and is taking steps to you show, give it a chance. Let time/therapy help you. I am PP who was cheated on. ExDW and I went to therapy a bunch, talked a bunch, but at the end, her heart fell for someone else.

[Anonymous]

I have been cheated on (left) and seen cheated on spouses (women) stay. I think I could have moved on IF my XH had been a kind person. He was abusive and controlling. Women who stayed - that I know - are unabashed in their reasons for staying (security, status). I have never observed a couple truly move on from such devastation.

[Anonymous]

I think I got past it by just pretending it didn't happen and making sure I never brought it up. Over time, it hurt less and I really didn't think about it much because things were good and he seemed committed to working on himself and working on our marriage.

In reality, we never actually dealt with any of the underlying problems, and once the initial effort to win me back stopped being fun, my (now-ex) started accusing me all the time of not forgiving him, and not trusting him. Then he had another affair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think I got past it by just pretending it didn't happen and making sure I never brought it up. Over time, it hurt less and I really didn't think about it much because things were good and he seemed committed to working on himself and working on our marriage.

In reality, we never actually dealt with any of the underlying problems, and once the initial effort to win me back stopped being fun, my (now-ex) started accusing me all the time of not forgiving him, and not trusting him. Then he had another affair.

Did you forgive him? Did you trust him? I don’t think I’m capable of forgetting what he did. Forgiving is something not yet happened.

[Anonymous]

Definition of “forgive” - stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.

definition of “trust” - firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.


Forgiveness is entirely within the victim’s control - you control your feelings and you control how and why you may choose to forgive. Several years after the cheating, I had not forgiven my then DH because the cheating derailed my life and I was rightfully angry about that and he appeared to have little remorse or understanding except as far as his cheating had hurt him. 10 years later, I have forgiven him in the sense that I don’t feel angry or resentful about the cheating. I think he did a terrible thing that had a devastating impact on us all, but I don’t feel much of anything anymore when I think about it.

I did not trust him after the cheating and I do not trust him 10 years later. Trust is often initially extended in relationships, but once trust is broken it can only be earned back. The question isn’t whether I would trust my DH again, the question is would he be able to do the things necessary to earn the trust back. In our situation that was - see psychiatrist and therapist regularly and take meds, stop drinking, be transparent about whereabouts and social media/email, demonstrate some understanding of the factors that drove the cheating and work to rectify them, build a track record over time of commitent to truth and to working out conflict explocitly and verbally and cut off contact with affair partners and not re-offend.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to consistently engage in behaviors that would earn my trust and, in fact, continued to engage in behaviors that build mistrust. This is true even to this day, although we have been split up for many years.

We women are trained by the culture to put aside those instincts that tell us not to trust. We are expected to extend trust despite our misgivings. This has the effects of keeping us in situations that are unsafe and unhealthy for ourselves.

Do not feel pressure to extend trust where it has not been earned. Your highest duty is to yourself - to keep yourself safe.

[Anonymous]

Does anybody have experience with serial cheaters? One time hook ups either paid or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:time, empathy, counseling

Can you elaborate on the empathy part? How do you feel empathy towards the wayward spouse?

I'm guessing what the PP means, but I'd think understanding the insecurities or problems that led to the person cheating. Being able to imagine circumstances in which you might have done something similar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody have experience with serial cheaters? One time hook ups either paid or not?

What’s your question? My DH said it’s only sex. Ha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm his wife, with all the benefits. He's not going to leave me and I'm not going to surrender my lifestyle because he wants to pay for BJs. It's just really not that big of a deal.

Sadly, this is the mentally of most women that have cheating husbands. Its about the money and prestige.

Melania, are you still posting here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a recently re-married DH. Found a great girl. My ex cheated on me, repeatedly, with the same guy (who she's now married to, btw). We tried reconciling for about 1.5 years and each time we tried, she just kept going back to him. I reached a point where I said enough. The only thing holding me back was our kids. I got to the point where I said enough.

I do agree in that women seem to be more tolerant of cheating men than men of cheating women. I don't know if it's some deeply embedded genetic makeup or what, but there is a difference (double standard?).

She sounds psychotic and the guy she married is an idiot who can have the same thing happen to him. On the second bolded point, this is true because for men, a cheating woman is a blow to his masculinity - is the guy better in bed? Larger penis? More alpha?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definition of “forgive” - stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.

definition of “trust” - firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.


Forgiveness is entirely within the victim’s control - you control your feelings and you control how and why you may choose to forgive. Several years after the cheating, I had not forgiven my then DH because the cheating derailed my life and I was rightfully angry about that and he appeared to have little remorse or understanding except as far as his cheating had hurt him. 10 years later, I have forgiven him in the sense that I don’t feel angry or resentful about the cheating. I think he did a terrible thing that had a devastating impact on us all, but I don’t feel much of anything anymore when I think about it.

I did not trust him after the cheating and I do not trust him 10 years later. Trust is often initially extended in relationships, but once trust is broken it can only be earned back. The question isn’t whether I would trust my DH again, the question is would he be able to do the things necessary to earn the trust back. In our situation that was - see psychiatrist and therapist regularly and take meds, stop drinking, be transparent about whereabouts and social media/email, demonstrate some understanding of the factors that drove the cheating and work to rectify them, build a track record over time of commitent to truth and to working out conflict explocitly and verbally and cut off contact with affair partners and not re-offend.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to consistently engage in behaviors that would earn my trust and, in fact, continued to engage in behaviors that build mistrust. This is true even to this day, although we have been split up for many years.

We women are trained by the culture to put aside those instincts that tell us not to trust. We are expected to extend trust despite our misgivings. This has the effects of keeping us in situations that are unsafe and unhealthy for ourselves.

Do not feel pressure to extend trust where it has not been earned. Your highest duty is to yourself - to keep yourself safe.

+1. My DW cheated on me repeatedly- slightly different situation as it was with another woman. My experience was the same in terms of the inability to do anything to regain trust etc.

[Anonymous]

Ex declared he was sorry and wanted to re-commit but I quickly learned what he wanted was the family unit, not me. He wanted me to take care of the house, have the DCs continue to adore him and the semblance of a good family Man. In reality, he was deeply enthralled and in love with AP and I couldn’t continue to be with him but know he longed for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ex declared he was sorry and wanted to re-commit but I quickly learned what he wanted was the family unit, not me. He wanted me to take care of the house, have the DCs continue to adore him and the semblance of a good family Man. In reality, he was deeply enthralled and in love with AP and I couldn’t continue to be with him but know he longed for her.

My cheating spouse didn’t tell a nary soul. His family would have initially disowned him- very religious and he paid prostitues- and his friends would have ridiculed him (as they did with a friend within their circle who cheated on his spouse). He would have been embarrassed because eventually his kids would have known. And his colleagues would have known- we are in the same small field where everyone knows each other and I would have sung like a beautiful bird. So he shipped up but it was still a long and painful process to get to where we are and I’m still contemplating leaving after the kids have launched.