Reply to Accountability for an affair? Should cheating spouse tell his/her own family?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. I think I am taking a lot of anger out on my MIL by shutting her out. I am also trying to send up a red flare, and hope that my behavior will cause her to ask DH and then he will tell her why.  Then I get the disclosure I want.

But the real result is that I'm punishing myself, but worsening a relationship that i previously enjoyed and want to enjoy in the future. AND she is not taking answering the flare b/c she is trying to do her best to stay out. she just knows we've "had a rough year."

People raise a lot of good points here. This is helpful. I agree maybe I'll never be satisfied. And that sucks. I worry that if I am really responsible for full forgiveness within myself then I just dont know how to get there.

I also agree that acknowledgement is the first step to cleaning it up. and not acknowledging is brushing under the rug. So why can't I have this acknowledgement??[/quote]

OP, your first paragraph is very passive aggressive. Please do not do this. It will not make you feel better.

One of the things that is very important about marital reconciliation post-affair is recognizing that the relationship that you had before is gone. Done. Over. You can't get that back. If that is your intention, please know that what you are doing there is trying to pretend that the affair never happened. You can reconcile and move on from the affair. You can even build a relationship that is joyful and loving again. But it's not going to be the same relationship because your perspective on your husband will have permanently shifted.

To an extent, you are the only one who can determine whether you are able to forgive. What forgiveness looks like to you and what it looks like to your husband (or your MIL for that matter) may be very different - the same way that your pain is going to look different from his pain or his mom's pain. Your husband tells you that he's hurting, but you do not seem to accept his pain or the expression of it as being valid. Again, that's understandable, but it's not just. Everyone processes pain in their own way.

One of the reasons that people cite for why they don't tell family or friends about affairs is that if you choose to stay together, there are people who will judge you negatively for that. If you leave him, your MIL might say, "Why couldn't you just stay with him? It wasn't that big a deal" but if you stay with him, your family might say, "Where is your self-respect, staying with someone who betrayed you like that?"

When did you find out about the affair? Are you and your husband in counseling? Are you in counseling on your own? [/quote]

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