If your marriage survived infidelity

post reply Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

◄ 1 2 3 4 5 ► Go

Go to page...

12/03/2018 11:17

Subject: If your marriage survived infidelity

quote

Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:How did it work? How did you decide to try? And if you’re still married, is there genuine trust again? Do you regret staying or think you made the right decision?

My marriage survived infidelity.

Confronted my DH with hard evidence that he had slept with someone else during our marriage. He cried and begged me to stay. I agreed but insisted on therapy for him and couples therapy. He agreed. We reconciled and had jointly planned and conceived another child.

Fast forward a year, and I found out that he had been lying to me in therapy about who the person was that he slept with, and that he was continuing to sleep with multiple other women. He didn't just tell me a little lie about his affair, he told me an elaborate story repeatedly and embellished over time in and out of therapy, with a lot of hostility towards me whenever I asked questions about it. This time I decided to stay quiet and watch him carefully like a detective. Over the course of the next year, I found out many other inappropriate behaviors and relationships he was hiding. I confronted him again and told him to leave the house. I retained full physical custody of our kids who were 18 months and 4 years at the time.

Who wants to live a life like that?

I regret wasting the time I spent on him trying to reconcile. I spent a lot of time and effort in therapy, guided by psychologists, questioning our relationship "problems" and trying to figure out why he was unhappy. That was a complete waste of effort, unfortunately, facilitated by "therapy". What a good psychologist should have told me is -- "There is nothing wrong enough with your relationship (or any relationship) that would justify infidelity. Only your husband can control whether he is faithful, and, for whatever reason, he has demonstrated that he is not interested in a monogamous relationship. So decide if you want to live with that or leave." I would have been much better off if a good psychologist had been honest about the situation and spent the time working with me to re-establish my life without him. I (and the kids) would have been much better off if I had divorced him out immediately and begun building my life solo w/ kids. If he had truly been remorseful and done the work on himself, then several years later we could have always remarried (with pre-nup).

Instead, I wasted a ton of time (and money) on him and building a relationship that he said he wanted but just wasn't ever going to be possible.

We still co-parent. I am polite to his face and in front of the kids, but he has continued to lie to me about so many things over the years that I have never regenerated any trust on any matters with him. I plan my life with plenty of backup to manage for the unpredictable times when he doesn't do what he says he will do or he lies about something.

I really regret ever getting involved with him. I really regret creating two wonderful kids with someone who is such a crappy dad and who continues his dysfunctional life in ways that pain them. The fact that the kids are terrific doesn't make up for the continuing damage my ex causes. It's like living with a loose cannon.

So, my marriage survived the infidelity, but what it couldn't survive is the completely dysfunctional, selfish and dishonest behavior of my husband.