SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I cheated on my husband 3 times with the same guy at the end of last year. New year came around, and I knew it was done. Something clicked in me and it was like reality hit properly.

I am still trying to come to terms with the person I am, and the destruction i have caused.

My husband is checked out. He is unstable and depressed. His behaviour is now very worrying and obviously I cant connect with him and help him as he won't let me in. He moved out for a bit and just went off the rails. Now he is back in the family home and drinks a lot, stays out late all the time, and generally runs away all the time. Meanwhile, I am really trying. I am doing everything he asks and more. I am trying to be there. Being patient. Listening to endless amounts of abuse and hard feelings. I know that in the long run, if we can get through this, we might be stronger. But this feels like a long way off and hopeful thinking on my part.

I am so worried about him. This is a decline that I started and now I am seeing him crumbling apart.

We started MC (my idea). We both get a lot out of it but my husband is mentally checked out.

Does anyone have any advice about what I can do? I wish I could take back time. I just know we can get through this but our marriage (and family) is slipping away.

Can MC fix this? He says he wants to leave all the time. Could this just be a defence mechanism or does that mean its over?

We have a toddler, who is our whole world. I feel so guilty for doing this to her too.

No STOP sign, so ...

No. Your MC can't fix this. No therapist can fix a client. All a therapist can do is help someone heal themself.

You can't change your H. He is the only one who can heal himself. He can get help, but he needs to want help for it to work. All you can do is offer support.

MCs help partners heal their M if they want the help. An MC's client is the M, but you broke yourself, your BS, and your M. Your M isn't the problem.

My reco is to get into IC yourself, with one of your goals being 'to change from cheater to good partner.' I suggest using something very close to those words when the IC asks, 'Why are you here?'

I also recommend suggesting to your H that he seek help.

You heal you. Your H heals himself. Once healing has taken hold, together you heal your M, if both of you want to do that.

Apologize profusely. More than anything else. It may take a thousand apologies, but eventually it'll sink in.

Do not blame him or the marriage for your choice to have an affair.

Read the thread pinned to the top of the Wayward forum about what every WS needs to know.

Reconciliation typically takes a few years. Yes, you read that correctly. Years.

For most people, the betrayal of infidelity is a profound shock and a severe emotional and psychological trauma. Your BH is likely lost in a world of unbearable pain and confusion. It took me about 10 months just to recover from the shock and several years to heal.

If reconciliation is your goal, you're going to need more patience and resilience than you ever thought possible.

Do your absolute best to encourage him to stop drinking. It will numb the pain in the short term while prolonging the healing process.

He needs space and time to pull himself together. It's not easy to do. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

As gently as you can, draw your own boundaries when it comes to verbal abuse. Many of the lashings I gave my WW (now ex-wife) are truly regrettable. I'd never felt such rage and hope to never feel it again.

Be patient. Apologize often, for specific things when possible. Be open and honest about everything no matter how hard it may be. Betrayed spouses become hypersensitive and hypervigalent, symptoms of PTSD. The slightest hint of dishonesty or obfuscation will be detected.

We have a "Healing Library" here at SI. You'll find it in the links tab. Scan through it and print out any articles you think might help him. Do not tell him about this site. Too often, unfortunately, couples both using SI turns out badly.

For some folks, infidelity is a deal-breaker. There's no other recourse. He might very well leave no matter how hard you try.

So now comes the really hard part. You have to let go of the outcome. Whether he chooses to stay and attempt reconciliation or leaves and divorces you is entirely beyond your control.

Your priority here is doing your best to dig deep within yourself and figure out why you chose infidelity to escape whatever issues you may have (we all have some). He'll want to understand them as well as he can (maybe).

Marriage counseling won't help this early out. In a couple of years, if reconciliation is going well, it could certainly help.

Reconciliation typically takes a few years.

Respectfully, could anyone show me just one example here of a couple who truly reconciled and healed fully after adultery in two years?

Go peruse the R forum, where you see many still struggling more than 5 years later. R is a LIFELONG effort, and only truly succeeds where the near-impossible happens: the adulterer truly changes their core character. Yes, it has happened. No, it’s not the "typical" norm.

Mad hatter here. It’s good that you’re here. There’s a wealth of information that can help you and your husband save your marriage if that’s what you ultimately both decide to do.
Gently, your whole first post has a hint of selfishness. It comes across as a bit impatient, like he is somehow not following a timeline that you feel he should be following. That’s a you problem.
He doesn’t get to abuse you, but you must be expect him to be reeling emotionally. It’s only been a few months since the end of your affair. How did he find out? Were you caught or did you confess? That’s important as well
You chose to have an affair. Full stop. He did not choose for this to happen. Full stop. Everything else is details.
As for your child, I also have a parent who was a cheater. I hate to say it like this, but it will probably eventually come to light and that fact will forever taint your relationship with your child. Whether she finds out at 3 or 60. You should accept that truth as well.
You broke it, but being here means you’re at least aware of that. Heed the advice and wisdom you’re going to get here. We're rooting for you.
Stay strong.

Are you seeing a therapist to figure out why you did what you did? You destroyed the man's world. Everything he thought he knew and believed and trusted and held sacred you destroyed. There is no timeline to fix this and you are far away from seeing a marriage counselor

You need to figure out and fix whatever is broken in you they lead you to do this. He could very well benefit from talking to someone as well but he has to want to

See if he is interested in setting up an account here. Here he can get advice from people who come from both sides of affairs.

It was almost a year before I felt like my feet were solidly on the ground and that I felt truly good about myself

Thank you for your replies.

I have read this site back to front and found some really useful information since January.

My individual IC has been very good, and helped me understand where and why I have done this. Also, if I am honest - highlighted many things I could have done to prevent our M being where it is today.

I am not sure my H is in a good mental state to heal himself. That's what I am so worried about. He is going out all the time. Speaking to very young women. Drinking to excess. Has anyone been in this situation. I want to break through to him before it gets worse. I understand your comments about being patient... when it comes to R I am... but what about just keeping my H from more pain and decline?

Thank you for your comments so far.

No stop sign.

Ma'am, first of all I affirm you posting here. Though anonymous, it takes courage and can show a willingness to face yourself.

Look, Im not going to pull punches here, you blew a hole clear through his soul and now he is acting out with emotional/behavioral instability and drinking to numb the pain (wont work as I can attest). Its tragically ironic that youre now concerned for him, right?

Listen, heres what he needs to hear and see. He needs to hear you take 100% responsibility for betraying him, your marriage and your family. No equivocating or dissimulating. 100% on you. He needs to hear you say that you will accept whatever course of action he chooses for himself, whether it be to try and reconcile or divorce you so he can start over with someone else (what I eventually did). He needs to see consistent remorseful actions/words over time (if you want to stay in the marriage....do you?).

To sisoon's point, I wouldnt recommend marriage counseling now. You need to get yourself into individual therapy to do the hard hard, hard work of how you gave yourself permission to nuke your marriage. How you can make yourself whole and a safe partner for anyone. If youve read the stories of other wayward spouses here, you'll read of the massive amount of effort the remorseful ones have put into themselves. This is not to say that the betrayed doesnt need IC as they assuredly do, but for different reasons. The most important is psychological, emotional triage. To begin the journey of trauma recovery and it is hard....very hard.

Not sure I missed it, but are you 100% no contact with your affair partner? Have you sent a "no more contact" text/email/letter to them? If so, are they honoring that? If this step is not in place, all the above is for naught.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 10:36 PM, Tuesday, July 22nd]

No stop sign.

I don't typically post on the wayward side but you did call for someone who had been in the situation. I see some striking similarities between your partner's reactions and my own experience.

Given that information is limited, I'll be working somewhat on presumptions. All I can do is offer you my perspective on the situation, and how I would and did react when I was in a similar place to your husband.

Firstly, has he shown any genuine indication that he's interested in reconciliation? If he keeps saying he wants to leave, maybe believe him.

Presuming he has not, and is just going through the motions:

When I encountered infidelity, my first response, much like your husband's, was to turn to drinking and frequent nights out. This phase was purely an attempt to mask the raw, immediate pain. I had little interest in genuine healing at that point; I just wanted to numb the agony. So, I drank—way too much, for about a month or so. My next step was to try and reclaim some sense of my masculinity. I did this by heavily using hook-up apps until I felt I had thoroughly dated around. Off the back of that, I ended up in a somewhat unsatisfying "situationship" (as the kids call it today). By the end of that, I was stable enough to start thinking about true healing.

It sounds like your husband might be stuck in this initial loop. I don't know the exact timeframes at play here, but if your affair ended late last year, that's a significant period to be consistently drinking and going out. I would encourage you to be sympathetic towards his behavior. Whilst it may hurt him in the long run, it's probably the only true moments of happiness he has been having since discovery. That being said, I was not married and had no children, though I had just bought a cripplingly expensive property with my unfaithful partner that I couldn't easily escape. So, perhaps the level of betrayal he feels is heightened. It's also possible that my own loop was broken because I formally split with my unfaithful partner.

Furthermore, on the presumption that cheating is a deal-breaker for him, the last thing he'd want is to be "healed" by the very person who caused the immense pain. I wouldn't want this; if someone intentionally kicks me in the nuts, their apologies and offering a bag of ice does little more than enrage me further. I could see myself too becoming abusive. Though never physically.

With that in mind, perhaps reaching out to his family or close friends—discussing the situation with them and imploring them to offer him support—is the best solution here. You've dropped a man into a deep ocean; you don't want to see him drown, but he might not trust any buoyancy aid you can offer.

My perspective here is that cheating may be a fundamental deal-breaker for him. He may not even know this for himself yet. It was for me. I could never overlook it. The shine would be too tarnished. He simply cannot live with himself staying married to an unfaithful partner, but he is currently too fragile, too broken, to initiate a divorce. This is causing a long, drawn-out, unhealthy loop that may only spiral further. It's just a theory, of course, and I could be wrong, but it's possible his inability to formally end the marriage is hurting him more than the alternative.

So, in terms of tangible advice, I guess it would be as follows:

- Reach out to his support network: Connect with his family and close friends, and ask them to offer him the support he needs right now.

- At the appropriate time, truly discuss if working on your relationship is best for him: If it becomes clear that reconciliation is not what he needs for his own well-being, then help facilitate a divorce. After all, if you truly love him. Accept that you have hurt him in such a deep way, you should be willing to give him anything he needs.

- Do not for a moment presume "we might be stronger": I would argue this is rarely the case. Read the reconciliation forums; not many of those relationships genuinely appear stronger to my view, though you do see the claim made occasionally. This is just my perspective. Unless a house needs a total rebuild, bombing it to ashes rarely is the solution.

- Accept you killed the marriage and family as you know it: Even if you manage to rebuild something new, you irrevocably ended the existing one. Along with this, a part of your husband, as he was, has likely died. Perhaps he will grow from this and change, and perhaps these changes will be positive. However, the man you currently know is fundamentally altered.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 11:45 AM, Tuesday, July 22nd]

Thank you all.

These are hard messages to read and I am sorry for the pain you have been through.

I feel as though I have fundamentally changed since my own IC. My view on who I am versus who I thought I was had been eye opening.

My husband was given a choice to re-start MC recently and he chose to move forward with it. He often says he wants to leave and then says he actually wants to try.

Tonight, we had a breakthrough on the drinking. Although initially angry and dismissive... he said he will monitor his drinking. This communication has made me feel like there is light and hope. I know he is trying and he tells me all the time that he is. I am so grateful for that.

I have sent a letter to the affair partner and I am following the steps on this site to help give me the guidance I feel I really need at the moment.

I have sent a letter to the affair partner and I am following the steps on this site to help give me the guidance I feel I really need at the moment.

I affirm this action. Glad you did so.

As he has decided to stay with the MC, I wish you both the best in that effort. I also hope by "monitoring" he means great moderation, but again, thats up to him. I hope it is a break through. The last thing he needs right now is over indulging in the depressant known as alcohol.

All you can do is all you can do. Keep working on yourself. On this site and others, it is generally accepted that majorative healing, restoration and reconciliation takes 3-5 years (something I have to take on faith as we never really got close, even after a decade of trying before it all ended).

I do have a question for you. When you said:

Something clicked in me and it was like reality hit properly.

What do you think it was that "clicked/hit properly"? Any theories? I have a feeling that whatever it was will continue to be very important.

Smile at him. A lot.

Best wishes

These are hard messages to read

I'm sure they are. Surviving infidelity, for anyone, betrayed or wayward, is truly hard stuff. You mentioned that you've been reading on SI. Good for you. Learn. That's why you are here, correct?

Two things about this little community of ours have always stood out to me: the raw emotions of members can be overwhelming; and the emence wisdom can be enlightening.

Keep posting.

helped me understand where and why I have done this

Can you say more about this?

Also, I'm very happy for you about his agreement to monitor his drinking. I hope it goes well. Perhaps if he lapses you can help him talk about what was happening right before the decision to drink.