A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:My husband cheated on me. I am heartbroken, but still in love with him. He loves me too, I know this for certain. Has anyone out there had a spouse cheat, then eventually move forward into a loving and faithful relationship with that spouse? I need some hope right now...
View related questions:
cheated on me, heartbroken Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (24 August 2008): ooo i could be depressing, my partner cheated on me- at least maybe 5 times-forgave him-am i a fool-but despite this he is my best friend-we have presented a good family front to our children and they would be devastated if we split
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (11 August 2008): Yes, it does happen. Infidelity is not the end of the world as we know it. Find out what your husband was looking for...did this affair stroke his ego, is he having a mid-life crisis, was he testing his manhood?
Your biggest obstacle to going forward successfully will be regaining trust in him. He will want to put this behind him and go about his merry own way as if nothing happened, because for him,the one in control, he knows for certain that he will or will not do this again. You however don't know what he will do and you have to TRUST him when he says it won't happen again. That is really hard to do when you have found out that you can't trust him........it is a vicous cycle.
There are ways to help you regain the trust. HE has to be totally tranparent, reliable and good with his word. If he says he will be home at 5ish and doesn't get home until 6, he's broken trust. If he says he is going to get milk at the store and brings home orange juice instead, he has broken trust. Sounds silly but it is serious business. HE has to be accountable for his time, all the time. HE has to answer his phone and be where he said he will be.....if this means taking a picture with his phone and sending it to you, so be it. He will not have to do this forever, but probably at least a year.
This will allow you to feel safe and regain your trust. It is alot for a man to do this, but it is the only proven way to rebuild the foundation that was swiped out from under you. Long after your husband has forgotten about this 'indiscretion' you will still have it popping up at the most inopportune times. Will he be willing to do all this in order to help you heal? Get a good counselor,with a proven track record or a personal recommnedation. Interview your counselor and ask some key questions to find out what his method is.
sorry this is so long, I hope you find your peace. hugs
...............................
A
female
reader, junebug +, writes (11 August 2008):
yes sorry this is very painful sitution no 1 will understand unless they have been in ur shoes and the only thing u both really need to understand is that u can work it out if u 2 really luv each other and it will take a long time to forget and forgive and trust again.good luck
...............................
A
female
reader, lexilou  +, writes (11 August 2008):
 If you want to stay together you just have to accept that it will take a long time to heal. After the anger, denial, hurt, grief and sheer frustration you may go through a bit of a honeymoon period again where you are truly in love and feel like you did in the beginning. This may only last until something happens to make you feel bad all over again.
If he is truly sorry and realises what a huge mistake he made, if you can truly forgive him, if you both want to spend the rest of your lives together then it CAN work. He wont necessarily cheat again but you will be looking for it and the hardest thing to do is trust him again.
He has to allow you to have bad days and not expect you to be over it in a few weeks. He then has to earn your trust but dont constantly throw it in his face and also dont try too hard to please him because you feel as though it is all your fault. By all means try couples counselling but only if it is what you both want.
One of the hardest things is often finding someone to talk to as you dont want family and friends to influence you or judge him so if you need to chat feel free to send me a private message x
...............................
A
female
reader, Country Woman +, writes (10 August 2008):
 Well I am sorry to say that I cannot give you a glossy picture but what I can try to give you is some hope but getting over an affair can work if both of you are committed to working at your marriage.
My story is different my ex who I had almost a 20 year relationship cheated on me, not fully sexually but the deceit and lies were the most painful thing. Anyway we did try to work things out but there were other elements that interferred with that but if we had not had outside intervention I do believe that we may have got our relationship back on track. However we did work together 24/7 and so our relationship had a different sort of pressure than perhaps yours has.
What I would say is don't expect too much of yourselves and certainly get into some couple counselling to find out why this happened in the first place. What I can say though that after going through counselling with Relate (over in the UK, it is a relationship counselling service that you do pay for but not as high as private counsellors), we did that for 3 months and then had individual counselling but my ex had some strange effects from his counsellor and then we found other more qualified individual counsellors and also a couple counsellor who was fantastic and we really got to the root of our problems with her.
What you cannot do is try to work things out between you as this has obviously not worked in the past hence the fact that your husband had an affair.
However, all affairs are caused for a reason and therefore it is not normally one person's fault, I wouldn't say that you are to blame but it is normally when couples are not communicating that someone looks outside of the marriage for solace or friendship or excitement as it is not happening at home.
My relationship changed after our daughter was born and so there was postnatal depression that I had quite badly and my ex could not handle me being the weaker partner when I normally supported him and he saw a different side to me that was not the meek and mild mannered woman he had always known, I changed into a protector of her child and did not put him first so there was some level of jealousy I think. He loved our daughter whole heartedly but I think he was jealous that she took me away from him in some way.
Talking and working hard to regain the trust is the only way forward but with the assistance of a counsellor/therapist. It is only if the trust cannot be regained that there is no hope and trust takes time to be earned once again so don't rush things OK.
There is always hope where there is love. However, if it happens for a second time I would not sit around and give him another chance and that is the fear of that which sometimes breaks a relationship, but with help this may be achieved depending on the quality of the counsellor.
Take care and wish you all the luck in the world.
BFN
Country Woman
...............................
|
