How long did it take for you/your spouse to feel balance/normal after an extra marital affair?

[Anonymous]

10:59, I feel for you but if she has shown no remorse, no way you're not still very angry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cheated, for almost a year, soon after we married and before we had children or owned a house. It was cowardly and terrible - I did not think we were going to make it, I wanted out, and we had not changed anything about our single lives after marriage. All of those are excuses, but they provide some context. I felt horrible, and when my husband found out/I confessed (it was more of a confession/what is going on with you type thing), I expected things would be over. But they are not, and five years later we have children, and a home, and I think we are okay. I often think he regrets forgiving me, and I think it changed our relationship in all kinds of terrible ways I had not envisioned at the time. We have done therapy, and I can honestly say I would never, ever do it again. For me, it was a horrible self destructive thing like cutting or drugs. I caused everyone so much pain, and I have so much regret about it.

That said -- I don't think you get over it. I am still not over having done it. It changes a marriage. But I would not look on DCUM for advice or support - on this website, everyone tells every woman complaining about doing all the dishes to Divorce! and Why did you marry him? So, well, no. Therapy, meditation, take time for yourself, cherish yourself, grieve. It is like a mini death. Take care of yourself.

I can believe this. He has deep rooted anger that is never going to go away.

I've been there. I am curious how these cheated on men deal with the other man especially if they are someone they occasionally see around.

No, not anyone we see around. My husband also, luckily for us or it would not have worked, does not have one of those my woman/my property type personalities. I know many men who could not deal with it, ever. As I said, it was a time in our lives so different from where we are now -- in our mid twenties, no assets, no history of marriage, no kids or kids on the horizon -- now, with all those things under our belt, I don't know what would happen. But my husband clearly had a clear path to the door at the time and we took more than a year to think about it before we decided to stay together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10:59, I feel for you but if she has shown no remorse, no way you're not still very angry.

Hi:
It's 10:59 responding. It's interesting you bring up the subject of anger. I was going to cover that, but my original post seemed like it was getting a little too long and ramble-y

One of the things that surprised me most about my own reaction to this whole thing is that I never felt anger. I really am puzzled by this even today. I used to get angry just hearing about about other stories of infidelity.

I assume the shock and pain just overwhelmed everything else. It really was completely devastating -- to the point where I wondered how I was ever going to get back to reality and be able to focus on work and other priorities. That 'daily' feeling of devastation lasted well into the second year.

The good news is that eventually time wears down the intensity of these feelings. Having a two to three year horizon to the 'new normal', crazy as it sounds, is not all that unreasonable. The bad news is that the new normal is a far cry from what I envisioned when I committed to DW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got through it, but the nature of my husbands stepping out was a couple of drunk one night stands, not long term and no emotional connection. We ended up treating one another better. It took a long time (years) and he really wanted to make it better. I don't have regrets working it out.

I think the circumstances (long emotional affair vs a stupid one-night no further connection) would determine how recovery goes.

Professing love and caring on for a long-time vs a non-emotional one-time drunken BJ I woujd think woujd be different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got through it, but the nature of my husbands stepping out was a couple of drunk one night stands, not long term and no emotional connection. We ended up treating one another better. It took a long time (years) and he really wanted to make it better. I don't have regrets working it out.

I think the circumstances (long emotional affair vs a stupid one-night no further connection) would determine how recovery goes.

Professing love and caring on for a long-time vs a non-emotional one-time drunken BJ I woujd think woujd be different.

I meant 'carrying on'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My ex cheated and I left. Shortly after, my BFF's husband also cheated. She stayed with him and is trying to work it out. It has been over three years, and she is still reeling from his actions. I don't know if they will ever truly recover, but they are both really trying. They both do individual counseling and then attend couple's counseling.

I think that she still feels afraid that he might do it again. She was dumbstruck when it happened and never even thought it was a remote possibility. They are good people, though, and I hope that they can make it work.

In my case, I knew that I would never be able to trust my spouse again. He knew before we married that if he ever cheated that I would divorce him. In some ways, I think he cheated to cause the divorce and end things quickly. It was the right decision for us to divorce.

You never asked him why he cheated? There must have been other problems in the marriage.

[Anonymous]

All marriages always have problems. Not all marriages experience affairs. If your marriage is having problems, the consequences of an affair will be so overwhelming, the original problems get little attention when trying To dig out of trust and security issues. As a cheated on spouse, you now know not only did your marriage have problems, but instead of turning to you, your Devoted spouse turned to someone else with no thought as to your well being. Pretty selfish move.

[Anonymous]

Well my DH cheated and I was thrilled. It gave me a solid excuse to divorce him and come out smelling like roses, when in reality the whole thing was a huge windfall for me. I was way above his pay grade and he turned into a fat slob so I'm suprised he found someone who wanted to fuck him, but *shrug*.

Of course he did not know what do with himself when I did not die of sorrow when I discovered the affair and promptly threw him out the door and never looked back. Ht cried and begged, but I was given my opening to split and took the golden opportunity.

Funny how when you stop being their dutiful door mat how they changer their song and dance, but of course in my case I was already making plans to live the rest of my life on my terms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well my DH cheated and I was thrilled. It gave me a solid excuse to divorce him and come out smelling like roses, when in reality the whole thing was a huge windfall for me. I was way above his pay grade and he turned into a fat slob so I'm suprised he found someone who wanted to fuck him, but *shrug*.

Of course he did not know what do with himself when I did not die of sorrow when I discovered the affair and promptly threw him out the door and never looked back. Ht cried and begged, but I was given my opening to split and took the golden opportunity.

Funny how when you stop being their dutiful door mat how they changer their song and dance, but of course in my case I was already making plans to live the rest of my life on my terms.

You should have spared him the heartache and admitted you loathed him before he cheated.

[Anonymous]

There's no such thing as normal after someone gets caught. For a guy, she will never forget it. I messed around on my wife in 1970 and I'm still hearing about it in 2015. We can get into an argument about wall paint and she'll bring up the woman I was messing with. Everything always goes back to that year. If you ever meet me, you would think I'm blind and have a broken neck because I can't turn my head and look at anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got through it, but the nature of my husbands stepping out was a couple of drunk one night stands, not long term and no emotional connection. We ended up treating one another better. It took a long time (years) and he really wanted to make it better. I don't have regrets working it out.

+
A one time deal, as painful as it may be, would be much better than a a drawn out affair.
In the same vein, stranger sex is probably easier to deal with than say online cheating with someone he/she knows even if there is no physical contact.

[Anonymous]

My neighbor's DH consorted with prostitutes when he served in the Korean War and she brings that up to this day.

Bet he regrets those true confessions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My neighbor's DH consorted with prostitutes when he served in the Korean War and she brings that up to this day.

Bet he regrets those true confessions.

Decades ago in a war? We got to give them soldiers a break !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well my DH cheated and I was thrilled. It gave me a solid excuse to divorce him and come out smelling like roses, when in reality the whole thing was a huge windfall for me. I was way above his pay grade and he turned into a fat slob so I'm suprised he found someone who wanted to fuck him, but *shrug*.

Of course he did not know what do with himself when I did not die of sorrow when I discovered the affair and promptly threw him out the door and never looked back. Ht cried and begged, but I was given my opening to split and took the golden opportunity.

Funny how when you stop being their dutiful door mat how they changer their song and dance, but of course in my case I was already making plans to live the rest of my life on my terms.

You should have spared him the heartache and admitted you loathed him before he cheated.

It didn't start out that way. You don't wake up unhappy. It happens over years and many behaviors lead to it. What makes you think I did not make my ex DH aware I was unhappy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's been five years since I discovered some texts on DW's phone. To make a long story short, DW had been away for a girl's weekend (which apparently involved getting together with some old guy friends who lived in that city) and when she returned I could tell something was a little off. I snooped and discovered DW and affair partner were texting weekly (sometimes multiple times per day) and planning their next meet up. Difficult because affair partner lived in a different city, but these two put forth quite an effort to plan it.

Rather than confront, I asked if everything was ok and let DW know I felt something was off. I even tried out the old "I know this sounds crazy but are you having an affair"? All I got in return was repeated denials while the communications continued and the day of DW's next visit with affair partner rapidly approached.

The whole thing turned my world upside down. After ten years of marriage it felt like everything about us was invalidated. I walked around stunned for months and there were times where I felt like I had been punched in the gut. The fact that DW could have cut it off after I asked her if anything was wrong told me everything I needed to know about her commitment to our relationship. That's probably what hurt the most -I couldn't rationalize it as a one-time mistake on her part.

I decided not to say anything more and to let DW go through with visit to affair partner (albeit with a private investigator hired to get photos) on the basis that our marriage was over and I at least wanted the leverage that photos would provide. But then I decided that splitting up was not going to be the best thing for our family (three young kids). And I just couldn't get over how super creepy hiring a PI seemed. So I confronted DW a few days before her visit with affair partner.

Fast forward five years and we've stayed together and I suppose moved past it, but I certainly haven't forgiven her nor has she accepted any responsibility. So we continue to stay together for the kids and manage to do it without fighting or creating a negative atmosphere. It actually works well for us. The key for me has been accepting the fact that I don't have the marriage I thought I had and just focusing on the joys that my kids bring me. I did look at my own actions to determine what I had done to bring this situation about. While we certainly had our share of the usual stresses, none of them really seemed to rise to the level where I could see how DW would choose to have an affair.

Finally, I decided that if my wife wasn't committed to being faithful, then I didn't have to be either. But I suppose that's a post for another thread. And for anyone contemplating it, I can tell you that having an affair of your own after being cheated on does absolutely nothing to dull the pain.

Wow. Dh here went through something similar but she pinned the blame on me for treating her poorly. Still married. Things are still a little off. Got some meds to help and to try to stop the ruminating. Thanks for sharing.