Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving forward past infidelity doesn't equal not having any self respect. There are myriad reasons why a spouse would choose to continue to stay married to someone who cheated.

IMO it does equal not having self respect. The person you traded vows with, the person who should respect you the most, the person you should trust the most....just violated those vows. They don't truly love/respect you if they are willing to hurt you like that. Nor will they change.

NP here. Of course a person can change. All infidelity is not created equal.

My husband had a short fling. I asked him to move out and we separated for 6 months. He was extremely remorseful and finally started some very long overdue personal therapy. We both worked through a lot of relationship baggage during our time apart and hashed out a lot of the problems that had been souring our marriage*.

We eventually reconciled and things have been very different. I won't say they are 100% perfect, but his attitude and perspective on family life is dramatically different and it's very obvious he is making much more effort to be engaged and open. It's been 2+ years at this point.

*I'm not excusing what he did when I say this, rather that neither of us wanted to go back to the marriage we had before he slept with someone else. If we were going to try to get past the cheating, the marriage had to be worth saving and that was something that took effort on both of our parts.

My sister and her husband have survived. Both were willing to put in the long hours and therapy to make it work for their child. They are much stronger for it four years later. Divorce would have been more expensive and painful for everyone. My sister is no chump. I have an incredible amount of respect for her.

Anonymous wrote:Moving forward past infidelity doesn't equal not having any self respect. There are myriad reasons why a spouse would choose to continue to stay married to someone who cheated.

IMO it does equal not having self respect. The person you traded vows with, the person who should respect you the most, the person you should trust the most....just violated those vows. They don't truly love/respect you if they are willing to hurt you like that. Nor will they change.

Moving forward past infidelity doesn't equal not having any self respect. There are myriad reasons why a spouse would choose to continue to stay married to someone who cheated.

Anonymous wrote:I've heard only about less than 20% of couples put things back together.

And my guess would be that 75% of those aren't truly happy. They are just hanging in there for the kids, their church, or just their minds.

Infidelity is something hard to get over. I know I could never do it. I have too much self respect.

I've heard only about less than 20% of couples put things back together.

My husband cheated. It took me three years to feel normal and were still together. There is a lot of work to putting back the pieces and my husband had to takes some major lumps, like my moods were all over the place, crying one day, panic attacks the next, and pretty much do both the roles of healer and person who broke my heart which had a lot of fallout. We made a lot of mistakes trying to fix things. I definitely thing a professional could guide you better. The first one we saw was awful and wanted to start right away with having me understand "why it happened." Yes, I get I'm an awful spouse, but it made me feel re-victimized because I was in such intense pain I felt invisible. So we found a better fit with someone else. I still think about it a lot, less and less, a d I make a rule to try to have good fun weeks with my husband even if I'm not really there, and it's getting better. We do really love each other and this wasn't an exit type of affair. Best of luck. A few therapy structures around "hold me tight" and the Gottlieb's program with the "four horseman" are pretty good for this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process has to involve your husband not actively wanting to leave.

Why do you say husband? Curious. Do you mean "cheating spouse?"

Because this is clearly the same OP from the other thread, where her husband cheated and said he wants a divorce, but she's convinced him to give it more time and believes the marriage can survive the infidelity, even though her husband refuses to discuss the matter at all.

This the lawyer chick?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process has to involve your husband not actively wanting to leave.

Why do you say husband? Curious. Do you mean "cheating spouse?"

Because this is clearly the same OP from the other thread, where her husband cheated and said he wants a divorce, but she's convinced him to give it more time and believes the marriage can survive the infidelity, even though her husband refuses to discuss the matter at all.

Anonymous wrote:The process has to involve your husband not actively wanting to leave.

Why do you say husband? Curious. Do you mean "cheating spouse?"

The process has to involve your husband not actively wanting to leave.

Infidelity, OP. I noticed you keep spelling it wrong in your posts.

Never married but was in LTR (10 years) and was raising a child together. Pretty much marriage without the ring/certificate.

She cheated. She didn't want to fix things. So I bailed.

Please share your stories of infedelity survival by staying married. I have heard plenty about failure but I know there are success stories out there. Please share them. Or share if you're attempting to survive it and what it is entailing and what the process has looked like.