Recover from an affair (need advice from others who strayed)

[Anonymous]

Following here - no real advice. Also had an affair that got discovered. I am not in love with AP and we aren't in close contact anymore. The physical side of my marriage died a while ago. It's dead again and I am fine in the short term without sex and intimacy if my wife needs space to heal. In the long term, don't know and would be willing to go to counseling if she would too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Following here - no real advice. Also had an affair that got discovered. I am not in love with AP and we aren't in close contact anymore. The physical side of my marriage died a while ago. It's dead again and I am fine in the short term without sex and intimacy if my wife needs space to heal. In the long term, don't know and would be willing to go to counseling if she would too.

Was your affair worth it?

[Anonymous]

Following here - no real advice. Also had an affair that got discovered. I am not in love with AP and we aren't in close contact anymore. The physical side of my marriage died a while ago. It's dead again and I am fine in the short term without sex and intimacy if my wife needs space to heal. In the long term, don't know and would be willing to go to counseling if she would too.

Why would your wife have any interest in being intimate with you if you cheated on her? Are you in individual counseling to figure yourself out? You need to be the one to help her heal. What steps are you taking to do that? Sounds like you think this should just be swept under the rug and in time she will want you again. I’m Kobe if blown away by your j ok ask of self-awareness and apparently lack of remorse. Get the book “How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair” by Linda MacDonald. You are the one that needs to do the heavy lifting here, it’s not on her to fix what you broke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Following here - no real advice. Also had an affair that got discovered. I am not in love with AP and we aren't in close contact anymore. The physical side of my marriage died a while ago. It's dead again and I am fine in the short term without sex and intimacy if my wife needs space to heal. In the long term, don't know and would be willing to go to counseling if she would too.

I think affairs destroy a marriage whether you stay or not. Once a person cheats it contaminates everything. I would be too worried to sleep with a cheater, and to me they are spoiled goods at that point. I suspect your wife knew you were a flirt or acted inappropriately with women. Usually cheaters have those flaws, and it may have turned your wife off before you actually cheated. I was with a cheater, but those were the early signs which I stupidly ignored.
You probably should divorce and never marry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am trying to mend my marriage after a long-term affair. I was the cheater. I am still in love with the other person but have gone no contact to try to work on things at home. We are in marriage counseling and some of issues that led to affair are being addressed but the strong feelings i have for other person are hard to overcome. My spouse does not want to divorce. If you were the cheater, were you able to fall back in love with your spouse? Judgers, please refrain from commenting -- I know where you stand.

No, I never fell back in love. It's been five years since she went no contact, and I still love her. I care for my wife - she's the mother of my children, and we've built this life together. But no amount of counseling or reprogramming would ever create the chemistry, the connection I felt with my AP. I would give anything to feel this way about my wife, the person I agreed to spend the rest of my life with. But it's too late, and it was over before AP entered my life. Life chips away and chips away at your soul, and instead of being a shelter from the storm, the marriage is just another source of stress, another crisis, another problem in need of solving. You make your peace with the way it is, the way it will always be. You get really good at being ... fine. And you miss her, and hope she's okay, and you try to come to terms with the rest of your life.

Vomit.

LOL He worships a woman who was willing to cheat with a married guy! Yep a real winner yet his wonderful wife was willing to give him another chance.
Living a total fantasy and no doubt if he ended up with the AP it would be the same situation after paying bills and raising kids.
Double Vomit.

I guess he's supposed to magically fall back in love with his wife (which he's been trying to do, incidentally), or leave his wife and kids to pursue his AP that went no-contact 5 years ago?

What's really nauseating are these shrews anonymously projecting on being left themselves and judging someone they've never known or met.... vomit indeed...

He's a idiot that shouldn't have cheated to begin with. To make matters worse he has no remorse, and is living in a fantasy world. Of course he can't be a good partner, he's his own worse enemy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am trying to mend my marriage after a long-term affair. I was the cheater. I am still in love with the other person but have gone no contact to try to work on things at home. We are in marriage counseling and some of issues that led to affair are being addressed but the strong feelings i have for other person are hard to overcome. My spouse does not want to divorce. If you were the cheater, were you able to fall back in love with your spouse? Judgers, please refrain from commenting -- I know where you stand.

No, I never fell back in love. It's been five years since she went no contact, and I still love her. I care for my wife - she's the mother of my children, and we've built this life together. But no amount of counseling or reprogramming would ever create the chemistry, the connection I felt with my AP. I would give anything to feel this way about my wife, the person I agreed to spend the rest of my life with. But it's too late, and it was over before AP entered my life. Life chips away and chips away at your soul, and instead of being a shelter from the storm, the marriage is just another source of stress, another crisis, another problem in need of solving. You make your peace with the way it is, the way it will always be. You get really good at being ... fine. And you miss her, and hope she's okay, and you try to come to terms with the rest of your life.

Vomit.

LOL He worships a woman who was willing to cheat with a married guy! Yep a real winner yet his wonderful wife was willing to give him another chance.
Living a total fantasy and no doubt if he ended up with the AP it would be the same situation after paying bills and raising kids.
Double Vomit.

I guess he's supposed to magically fall back in love with his wife (which he's been trying to do, incidentally), or leave his wife and kids to pursue his AP that went no-contact 5 years ago?

What's really nauseating are these shrews anonymously projecting on being left themselves and judging someone they've never known or met.... vomit indeed...

He's a idiot that shouldn't have cheated to begin with. To make matters worse he has no remorse, and is living in a fantasy world. Of course he can't be a good partner, he's his own worse enemy!

He should do everyone a favor and divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have kids, think about them knowing you cheated, especially as they get older.

Bit late for that now. I have zero respect for my parent who cheated.

Well, my dad cheated on my mom and I still love him dearly. He didn't cheat on me...so I have no resentment. Plus, my mom has serious mental issues. I ended up with my dad and his new wife, and thank god I did! My mom is a mess.

My Dad took no responsibility and blamed everyone from my mom to me (how on earth did I make him cheat). He always proclaimed strong family values and would never do such a thing and then had been doing it for many years. Of course your mom is a mess. Her husband cheated on her and left her for someone else. What kind of man does that to his wife and kids? You don't take cheat and take away the kids. That is not a good person.

Again, she is mentally ill. She was mentally ill well before he cheated. He tried so hard but she never took her therapy, her medicine or being a mom seriously. All I am saying is my dad is human, he was hurting, we were all hurting because my mom is SICK. People want to act like cheating automatically makes you evil. Well, my dad is my hero for saving me from my mom. He didn't just leave us and start a new life with his new wife. I love my dad and thank god he is the man he is. My stepmom is and always will be more like a mom to me than my bio mom will ever be. I am 40 and still have to find ways to set up boundaries with my mom and my kids. It sucks...

I think your lived experience is clearly your experience, and you have every right to feel the way you do. I just also hope you have enough self awareness to recognize you are an outlier. Which is also fine - it's good to have examples of outliers. But you present your story in a little bit of a sanctimonious way, so I might just check that.

[Anonymous]

^+100.