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[quote=Anonymous]My husband had a year-long affair with a coworker.  During that time, he seems to have convinced himself that it was all my fault because he didn't think I cared about him enough.  I had just had a baby and was pretty preoccupied with newborn stuff and some pretty hardcore PPD, and I was definitely not paying as much attention to him as I used to.  I guess the mistress was very complimentary to him, told him how great he was, etc.  So his justification was that I didn't love him enough.  Note that I do not think anything was justified here - if he was so unhappy, he could have come to me, which he didn't.

Since I found out about the affair and he ended it, he says he will do anything to get us back on track.  He seems rather upset that he did this, and his identity seems to have taken a pretty large hit that he could do something like this.  He admits that he spent a long time basically funneling the good feelings towards the mistress and pulling away from me.  Now, he says all of his feelings about everything are muted - he says he loves me but he feels like the love is hard to access, and his love for our kids is more muted too.  From what he describes, it sounds like he has basically walled himself off.  We are in marriage counseling and I have told him I think he needs his own therapy too.

My question is whether others have experienced this and been able to unblock/unbury themselves?  I think it's a defense mechanism so he doesn't have to feel the pain of what he did.  If he is unwilling or unable to go through that to access his feelings, I don't think I can stay with him.  It's hard enough to deal with this, but the strange bottled up thing is really a dealbreaker to me.  I do not want to be with someone who cannot go through the hard stuff to save our marriage, and I don't want to be with someone who cannot fully feel the love that he claims to have for me.  Or maybe he's depressed?  The affair is just the gift that keeps on giving.[/quote]

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