Hello everyone!
During the affair recovery process there are many things that the betrayed spouse needs from the cheating spouse to help them recover, heal and save the relationship.
The list can be quite extensive obviously, and is very dependent on where the betrayed is at in their own recovery process. For example, a person 2 years removed from D-day is probably going to need different things from the cheater than a person 2 months removed from D-day.
As an example, a reader recently offered the following list of things that he needed for his own affair recovery process to continue:
- To take ownership of the affair – that it was her CHOICE – and to use the word affair.
- Acknowledgement that the pain inflicted was real, cut deep and will take a long time to heal.
- Proof of no more contact, access to cell phones, email, passwords, whereabouts and who she is with. Gradually this need will fade but I reserve all rights to know.
- Full and complete truthful, honest answers to ALL questions for as long as I need answers.
- Individual/couples counseling until I deem it over.
- Mandatory scheduling of together time- away from everyone. To laugh out loud and cry and argue and make up.
- Expectation of communication that she never withhold information again, ever, under any circumstances. I can ask as many times as I need.
- For her to know that the trust being rebuilt will not happen in a day. It is on my schedule, not hers.
- That she believes she must change her belief system of what is right and wrong in a partnership.
- Acknowledgement that her reality was that of a fantasy, that marriages take hard work and that she is willing and able to put forth the effort.
With this in mind…
What do you need your cheating spouse to do in order for you to better recover and heal from the affair?
If by chance your spouse is doing everything you need, please let the others know what he/she is doing to help you in your recovery and healing.
(Please let us know how long ago your D-day was)
As always, feel free to share your story and respond to each other’s comments!
Thanks!
Linda & Doug
29 replies to "Discussion – Your Needs in the Affair Recovery Process"
Boy, It seems the last two weeks of discussions have been big duds. I must be losing my touch as far as choosing topics!
Maybe this topic is itself difficult. My H has asked me many times what I need in order to recover, to begin to trust again; so has our marriage counselor. The trick is that I’ve never been in this situation before. I did date someone seriously, for three years, who cheated; when he did, it was over. I didn’t think the relationship worth continuing as we weren’t married, had no children, etc. Now, though, I’ve built a life with this person and so am willing to give him a chance. But as I’ve never had to recover from infidelity, I’m not always sure what will help.
This site gives me some ideas, and I definitely agree with the list posted above with one exception: I like the word “adultery” better than “affair.” To me, “affair” sounds romantic and has a whiff of dashing espionage about it. “Adultery” identifies the real crime: to adulterate something is to mix it with something less valuable, to cheapen it and lower its worth. That’s what a CS does to his/her marriage. The CS debases the value of the most precious things in his/her life, when they’re rightly considered: their marriages, their families, their own integrity.
It’s hard to articulate exactly what I need. One need I have been able to formulate: I need my H to be a man of his word in *ALL* things. When he says, “I’ll do x” or “I’ll take care of y” and then doesn’t — no matter how small x or y happens to be, how relatively insignificant — it weakens my trust in him, and my feeling of safety with him. If I can’t count on him in the small things, how can I possibly count on him when more is at stake? I think sometimes CSs may not realize that trust is rebuilt in the little things (taking out garbage when you say you will, finishing tasks you’ve agreed to take on in timely fashion) as well as in the big ones (NC, etc.).
I agree that it is hard for me to even know what I need… many of the things I said I needed after DDay he didn’t fulfill leading to big setbacks in my recovery. He is trying to do what I need and want but I am not giving him a whole lot of direction as the crap that he pulled 7 months post Dday just floored me and I think I am feeling rather indifferent to him in general now at 13 months post Dday.
However, the point you make, Carol, about being true to his word in all things hits home for me. If he wants my trust back then he better say what he means and mean what he says and follow through. So I guess that is one thing I need and I am just sitting back now watching and waiting to see if he can be trusted again in small ways. Because if I can’t count on him for the small stuff I sure as heck am not trusting him with the big stuff, like my heart, again.
What I need from my CS is commitment to being attentive and loving toward me, instead of cold and distant.
When he was cold and distant he was being a liar and a cheater. Although he has been better about sharing some of his needs and feelings some of the time, he is NOTHING like the man I fell in love with; who was attentive, affectionate, helpful, understanding and in all ways devoted and actually cherrished me and our union.
In fact, none of his behavior really changed from being a good and loving husband, until the afternoon when I opened his phone and caught him in the act of an 8 week adulterous affair, while holding our 7 week old baby in my arms.
Since then, I have been crushed. I have felt like our entire relationship was/is a lie. I don’t trust my feelings for him and I don’t trust him at all. He has clammed up and shut down, regularly. This has caused me to feel even more lonely and alone in our relationship.
Being “alone and in a relationship” is something I will not tolerate, again. I was married before, for 5 years, to a man who was paralyzed in a car accident; and although I loved him very much he was incapable of giving our relationship and me the attention and love that we needed to thrive, because of his intense pain and horrible situation. We were married for only 7 months when his accident happened; and it ruined both of our young lives. I was 22 and he was 24. Our future was moot, at that point. We tried and tried to stay connected and in a marriage; but neither of us were getting what we needed. I was not being valued as a wife and partner and was often left in the position of caretaker, maid, cook, errand runner, etc…with little or no time for a connection. He and I parted. We did not part friends at first; because it was difficult for both of us to give up on the life we had envisioned for our marriage and love. After a few years, it’s still very difficult to see and talk to my ex-husband; as I do believe that we still truely were in love and wanted very much to be with one another.
That said, L-I-F-E happened and changed our paths. I learned that when I am being devalued as a wife and partner and that when I am being “ignored” or rather, put aside; for whatever reason, that my partner is not being “a partner” and I am not getting what I need. I will not go through this kind of emotional pain and anguish again. I felt alone for too long in my adult life.
Now that my current H has cheated on me and as I see it on our family, since I was ready to deliver our first and my only baby; while his affair started, I again find myself in this situation of being “alone and in a relationship”; it has been 1 year since D-day. I am not any closer to feeling like my CS is committed or that he truly loves me and our union and wants to be here. He says he does.
He even acts like he does sometimes…
What I need more, now than ever is to feel like I matter to him. That my presence in his life is appreciated. What I need now more than ever is to feel like he values me as a partner and his best friend. What I need now is to have regular sexual contact and feel an intimate connection with him. What I need now is for him to stop being so shut down emotionally.
I asked him to leave two weeks ago. I told him to leave our home. I told him that if he wasn’t going to leave then the baby and I are leaving him. And I meant it. I still mean it. I cannot stay in a relationship where I feel taken advantage of and under or devalued.
I need to feel like I matter. I need to feel loved and wanted. I need him to drop his bullshit and focus for once on “HOW I FEEL” about his cheating and lying to me in the midst of starting a family together. His adulterous actions are about him, not me…but he sure has made me feel like a piece of shit since the time I opened that phone; by not being the husband and partner that I know he is and was through this last year.
Bottom line: I need very regular intimate connection ie sex, touching, kissing, hugging, dates, laughter and getting to know each other again…and if he can’t or won’t give that to me…I want a divorce, simply because I won’t live in a relationship where I am “alone”.
Doug, don’t worry I don’t think you are losing your touch! Carol, great response. I wish I had a great response too, but in reality I have an extremely hard time answering that question. I WISH there was something he could DO. A magic checklist that he could run, and it would make it all OK. I would trust again, love him the same way I used to love him, and restore the foundation of our marriage. I wrote him a letter and it included all ten of the items above. However, the reality is that it was remarkably easy for him to hide his affair. He “met” his OW over the phone through work, and they basically built a relationship via text, email and phone conversations. By the time they actually met face to face, a PA was pretty much a given. I NEVER knew how much he was texting/emailing/talking to her. He hid it very well, with the ONLY exception being that he suddenly got very compulsive about never setting his phone down, and keeping it with him at ALL times. That is, in my opinion your biggest indicator that someone is cheating on you! But it would be incredibly easy to buy a second phone and hide it. Email from an undisclosed account. Meet up during times of the day they should be other places. And the list could go on. So I can think of way around every one of the items on my “needs” list. It boils down to time. It will simply take however long it takes, with proven behavior for me to heal from the affair. As far as trust goes, there are things that have changed forever. There is some amount of trust that is gone forever. For example, they used to go out to lunch together alone, and in the beginning I was stupid and trusting enough not to mind. NEVER again. Meals out alone with members of the opposite sex is a thing of the past forever.
I guess the only other thing I could add is that I need him to continue to recognize what he has done and take responsibility for it. Participate in counseling. And I will be able to tell a lot by how “connected” he seems to be to me. I will never let “work stress” be an excuse for not communicating or not spending time with me ever again!
Doug, I think this subject was something that many of us had to think on for a day or two. I think it’s a good discussion. I just think we needed a couple of days to really decide what it is, each of us, as the BS; needs from our CS. Also, it’s different for each of us, depending upon what recovery stage or time after D-day one might be at.
I think it’s a good topic.
Personally, I had to think on it for a day or two before commenting.
I gotcha Jamie. No problem as that makes perfect sense. Thanks for that reminder.
I am with Jamie…this is a hard one to discuss…I for one have laid out my emotional needs and my spouse just cannot do what I ask. However, he is making the steps I asked in repairing our marriage and ultimately my trust. He is transparent enough, has NC, knows how I will act if he repeats any irreparable actions…my needs are now met by me. I have made myself feel better about me and I myself have changed the marriage…but I have done it alone. No counseling no help. Only assistanc win here, instead of grand steps, I now look for little. And it’s working. When I forget about the shit he put me thru, how our marriage meant so little to him, I am not inputting any
Oops…
Assistance for his change. I have changed for the better. I have changed to heal. I have changed for my kids. I have changed for my sanity and health. I have changed my bad habits into Better habits…but I did this for me. Not him. He must face his demons, mistakes and habits.now I enjoy his company and his attempts. I love spending time with him but I never bring up ea. I never bring up ow. I want the power….the bat advice is YOU COME FIRST…it works. Give in to yourself not the ea.
Also, one note…I never speak in terms of how many months after dday any more. For the record it’s 15 mos. past dday #2, and five years past first one….
This one is difficult for me, too. I also had to think about it for a while. I had the usual list of transparency, honesty, counseling, etc., but the place where I am still stuck concerns his feelings.
I have the last emails where they both promised to love each other in their hearts and minds forever, even if they never got to be together in this life. If God was merciful, He would make a way for them someday. But for now, they needed to fulfill their obligations to their families, and their relationship was not good for their families. So they would just be friends.
I don’t know how to get past that. No matter what he says or does, I can’t believe that he isn’t just trying to do the right thing while still holding her in his heart and mind. And so I go around and around the roller coaster, never able to get off. It’s almost two years now…
I had actually written an answer to this post as soon as Doug posted it, but lost internet connection on my phone and I lost it. I’ve tried to rewrite it so here it is:
What do you need your cheating spouse to do in order for you to better recover and heal from the affair?
I am 2 years and 5 months from D-day.
What my Husband has done:
1. Take full responsibility for his Eas.
2. Apologize… many times, especially after every discovery of his Eas with different women.
3. Has seen my pain and says it hurts him to have done this to me.
4. Proof of no contact: I have access to his phone and email accounts.
5. Has answered all my questions, whenever I’ve felt the need.
6. Open communication at all times.
7. Says he loves me several times a day, and is very attentive like when we were dating.
All the above has served to try to rebuild our marriage and I am thankful to him for not having to put me through a behavior of denial or defensiveness on his part. He took full responsibility and never undermined my feelings. Of course this doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a painful process. I too would like him to take out a magic wand and magically erase the times he wasted on those women, I too would like to wake up one morning and realize it never happened and it was just a bad dream, but that’s not possible so now that he destroyed the marriage I thought we had, we need to build a new one. A better one.
What I want him to do:
1. Help minimize or eliminate the triggers.
2. That I never find out about another woman he flirted with.
3. That I never discover another website or email account he signed up in and “forgot to mention”.
4. Never, never take our marriage or my love for him for granted.
5. That he tell me what in hell was he thinking when he was having his EAs, because he has yet to volunteer information. He’s limited himself to only answer all my questions but has never sat down to tell me exactly why or what hid did behind my back.
I know I will never be totally trusting of him as in the past, but as long as he keeps open communication with me, respects me, takes care of my heart and never breaks it again, I will continue to love him and stay in this marriage.
In my case I did my list based on the “His Needs, Her Needs” book from William E Harley; but since she has willingly not follow through with the list – after a year and a half from D-Day – I need to start thinking about what to do next. One thing is making the list, and another is actually moving forward ( if the CS complies) or have than face the consequences of not trying to accommodate the BS needs. This is dfficult!
D day for me was May 21st of this year. THis day has changed my life forever. It caught me so off guard and was such a shock that I feel like I am still numb. My husband has been the man people go to for relationship advice, he is so down to earth and has common sense and such a mature way of looking at the relationships of a man and a woman. He is always dead on with his advice – how could this man, the man so many people trust, actually be having an emotional fair for 6 months before I ever found out??? It started with an old lover texting him out of the blue, his recollection was that he was surprised to hear from this person. They chit chatted, chit chatted, reconnected I guess – all the while I had no clue. During this time we distanced. He started accusing me of changing, starting telling me I wasn’t the person he married. I was so confused, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I asked him if he wanted to get marriage counseling – he said I already know what the marriage counselor would say, she would say that it is all you. I felt so confused, like I didn’t even know who I was or what was happening. Then one day he was leaving for an out of town job, I was planning a trip to Phoenix with my sister to keep my mind off the fact that he was leaving for 2 nights. On the way out the door we got in a huge fight, him yelling at me telling me I was not the person he married. I tried to act like I didn’t care and left and did not text him or call him while I was gone, only to touch base – very cold and distant texts from both of us. The night I was coming home, I called to tell him I was driving up the hill and he was drunk drunk drunk and I hate that. I came home and the next morning I looked at the phone records to see if he was talking to anyone while drunk, basically trying to find out who his confident was because he was obviously upset with me. I found he was texting an unknown number for 11 hours without one break in the texting back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, for 11 straight hours, up until 2:30 in the morning and then another text at 6:30 in the morning. I called the number and a girl answered. I hung up. I called him to ask him who that was and he started crying and told me he wanted to get this off his chest. He said that it was a girl he knew from a long time ago, and the story came out. He said he never even met wtih her that it was all texting. I have been left to believe this man who I have very little if any trust in any more – did he really not see her? I called her and she was chicken shiz and didn’t answer. She text me and told me she was sorry, that nothing happened and that my husband loved me. Thanks beotch……….wow. I am so angry still to this day. We are in counseling and he first said he was an alcoholic and that took my eyes off the texting affair and onto his “alcoholic problem”, now that it has been a few months he says he isn’t an alcoholic. He is changed though, we are in counseling, he has his own counseler, and he is trying, he really is trying. But what I need from him is I need him to be willing to talk to me about this. This has been a closed subject, not allowed to be talked about. I need to be able to ask him a million times if i need to the same questions, over and over because I just can’t get it in my head, it is so shocking. Why did you do this? Do you like her? Did you really not see her? What did you talk about? ugh. a lot of his answers are “I do’nt remember because I was drunk”. I need him to hug me when I feel sad. I need him to be patient with me. I need him keep his history open on all of his gadgets, computer, phone, ipad, so i can see where he visits on these things. I need him to be okay with me looking through his phone. I need him to not make me feel like a loser when I want to ask him questions like where were you, etc. He feels like I should be over it! Really??? I don’t know how to get over it, I am trying, reading advice, going to counseling, etc. I am getting better. I looked her up on facebook and she is sick, just sick, what the heck was he thinking to risk our 7 year marriage for that skinny shell of a woman? wow. I need him to be transparent and talk about his transparency. It is like it is said yes I am transparent, but I don’t feel free about it, i feel sneaky and I don’t feel i should feel this way. I need him to not get mad at me when he sees that I am having a day where I feel triggered about all of this. Basically,I realize I do’nt trust him and that makes me sad and if he heard me say that he would be super upset. I need him not to be upset about that, accept that it is his fault and do whatever he can to help me through this. Sorry so long, good luck to you all.
Terri, first, if your H is in counseling, the counselor SHOULD be telling your H that he HAS to be transparent with you and he HAS to be answering ALL your questions, if not, the counselor is NOT doing your marriage any good!
Second, the best book I can recommend is “How To Help Your Spouse To Heal From Your Affair” by Linda MacDonald….This book will tell you EXACTLY what you need to know about what your H needs to do to help you heal…..and you HAVE to stick to your guns for TOTAL transparency!
And enough of this crap of your H being “upset” if you bring up the EA, enough of his excuses, because that’s what they are…EXCUSES!
He doesn’t want to deal with what he has done, too bad!! He had the affair, he lied to you, he betrayed YOU!!
Please DO NOT be one of these wives who meekly accepts that the CS doesn’t want to talk about the EA!!
This is about YOU now….for there to be any healing on your part, you HAVE to have answers, you HAVE to have transparency, you HAVE needs that need to be met!
Be strong, if he had wanted to leave you, he would have, he’s not going to go anywhere, trust me!
I’m 20 months out form Dday, and my H tried to pull the same crap…I don’t remember, we were just friends passing the time, etc….
This is NOT a closed subject, and your H is full of crP if he thinks he can betray you and devastate you and then tell you sit a closed subject!
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Terri, but this is NOT an easy thing to recover from….it truly does take years!!!
I found this blog 4 months after Dday, read some of the postings, and left! I was so upset after reading that BS were still in pain one to two yrs AFTER Dday!!
I told myself NO WAY!! That’s not going to be me! I’m going to get over this faster than that…four months later I was still in so much pain, the hurt and feelings of betrayal were NOT going away!! I came back to the blog and it was the BEST desision I made! The encouragement and the friends I’ve made on here have helped me sooo much,I couldnt have made it without them!
My H and I are doing much better, yet we are still dealing with the effects of his EA…like your H it was all phone calls and text messages, since the cow lives several hundred miles away.
But we’ve since discovered that my H is emotionally damaged from his childhood, he has a father who is an alchoholic and a cheater, and a very cold mother, due to shutting down because of her Husband…
My H has cut off all contact with his family at this point…he realizes now how poisonous they are…and he has looked into ACoA meeting, Adult Children of Alchoholics…
Now, in saying all of that…it’s NO excuse for what my H did! He had choices to make and he made the wrong ones, for over 4 months!!
Your H not wanting to talk about the EA is very selfish, but that’s what these affairs are about…selfishness!! Deep down, to the bone, selfishness!
Now, the question is, are YOU going to let him get away with being so selfish???
Teresa, excellent advice! I’m going to look for that book as there are still some issues I need to address with my husband. Mainly him acting like a victim when I push too hard for answers or when he feels neglected, which was one of the reasons his EAs started. I don’t put up with that crap anymore nor does his guilt trip affect me. But this week it became apparent that he still feels like the victim when we dropped off our twins at college. He wasn’t the only one sad to see them off but he sure acted that way. During the long ride back to our home state he expected me to “entertain” to help him deal with his pain, however not once did he check to see how I was handling the situation. It felt like a set back to me and to make matters worse my oldest daughter was in the car with us so couldn’t tell him to lay off the guilt trip and be a man.
Natalia, I don’t mean to hijack your comments here, but I thought that these two posts that reference “How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair” might be helpful:
https://www.emotionalaffair.org/helping-your-spouse-with-healing-after-an-affair/
https://www.emotionalaffair.org/healing-from-an-affair-changing-from-destroyer-to-rebuilder/
Also, here is a link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/145055332X?tag=emoaffair-20&linkCode=sb1&camp=212353&creative=380553
Doug, no problem. Thanks for the links. After reading them I had a conversation with my H and cleared up some issues like the fact that I’m not a mind reader so he needs to voice his needs, just like I have always done except he chose to disconnect himself at times and didn’t do anything for me.
The list of ten is a great place to start. We’re 16 months since d-day. I still need my CS to realize that I need his full honesty to rebuild trust. I think I will never regain full trust in him.
I need him to stop contacting her all together. I don’t care if it’s a Facebook post, it is still contact.
I need him to stop acting like I’m crazy when her name comes up. I need him to understand my hurt is real not ” made up” or “exaggerated”.
Thank you so much for the advice. This rings very true to me, as I know it hasn’t been right for him to shut me up so to speak. He rolls his eyes now. I mentioned it the other night how that I get a panicky feeling when I see him texting now, and he just rolled his eyes, “oh good god”. Well, I wanted to pinch his head off and say, well good god I didn’t realize you were doing this for 6 months when you did it before, so how would I ever know now?????? Ugh! His counselor doesn’t advice him on our marriage as she is counseling him and his issues which seem to be midlife crisis type things. We do go to couples counseling and i am going to bring that up, to bring it to light the things I need at this time. I defintiely need to read this book you referenced, as I do need help. I feel bad that I still need help but I realize it has only been a few short months. That date will always ring in my mind and there are so many triggers for me, like every red headed woman makes me skip a heart beat as it reminds me of her (I looked her up on facebook). Things are great with my husband and I if I don’t bring it up, but when I do, things are not so good. Still plugging along. Thanks for the advice 🙂
Terri,
First of all do not turn this on yourself, he cheated because
of an internal void within himself, it has nothing to do with
you. His internal void is a emptiness within him, something only God can fulfill. By him seeking an affair
partner is was his way of filling a void that, that he will
someday regret because its not possible for an affair partner to fill that void and have God Bless it. He will
suffer the consquences of his actions.
His happiness has to come from God, and by him rebelling
against God’s word, he won’t find happiness as long he’s
trying to justify his affair.
Your responbility to God is to forgive your husband, you need to forgive him wheather you stay or leave.
As far as his affair partner, Read Proverbs chapter 5.
This will enlighten you and educate you.
Terri,
Take your control back and live again, doing what makes you happy, your husband’s choice was wrong, but it need
not affect who you are. Stay in control of this and if your husband gives you an attitude, remind him your only staying because you believe he can get his act together.
Tell him you will work with him as long as he continues
to seek the help. Anything less you will not put up with.
Terri, your in control, now.
Hold your ground, and if he treats you with disrespect,
and will not change then you need to decide if you want
to live with someone like that. Your in control.
Terri,
Once you realize that your spouse and this other woman
were on a path of their own self destructive behavior, you can then understand that you need to stay strong and in
control. Their behavior was their own lack of self control
and pretty much it was like chasing a rainbow looking for a pot of gold, which you know doesn’t exist.
They fall into these traps because inside they are unhappy,
and they make fools of themselves. Forgive Them!
Everyday we are given choices and we can chose right from wrong. However we need to forgive others when they
do something foolish. As wheather you stay or leave
it depends on you. But forgive them.
Anita I felt the power of those statements for me to take back control. That is exactly why I get to feeling so helpless is when I lose it and feel hopeless and overwhelmed. It is like I am not the one that brought this into my life and when I am suffering about it and feeling so much pain, the one person who could help me turns on me and gets so very angry that it is not over, and then I feel so defeated, like no matter what I am doomed to suffer and I tell myself, GET OVER IT! But……………..it is so hard to just do. He saw me reading these posts and reading over about that book titled helping your partner get over your affair or something like that and then I reiterated what it was to him and it caused a small blow up. It was only small because I completely shut up and stopped talking. He is just beside himself that I am still talking about this, and it has only been 3 months! He is very sorry and treats me like gold in all other ways, but this subject is so taboo and he totally loses control about it. Our couples counselor said “dont’ discuss it outside of our sessions” because she has heard how horrible our discussions end. He wants to fix this so bad, he says I don’t know what to do or what to say to fix it. Well I say don’t do anything, just hear me, love me, hug me, reassure me, tell me you understand my feelings, say your sorry again even though you said it already, don’t make me feel like an idiot or malfuntioned person because I haven’t figured out how to get over it! So, we had the little blow up and then he came back in the office and bent down and gave me a hug and said “I am sorry, I don’t mean to leave you on an island to suffer alone”. I thought wow, that is what you are doing! He said it is just that I don’t know what to say or do to fix it, and I said, don’t do anything. That is what this book is about, maybe it will help you and in turn help me. He said he would be willing to look at it, so I sent him the web address to order it. I am crossing my fingers so hard that he will read it. I just know it can’t hurt. Thanks for listening! Thanks for advice! Terri
Terri,
You need to remind yourself this was their wrong doing, and pull yourself away from this.
I really believe when a spouse cheats they are so caught up into their own world, and its not about you, its about
them chasing something that is nothing but a trap of deceit, and in that deceit THEY fall.
You are not responsible for your husband choosing this
wrong path, he chose it, but it was because of his own
internal unhappiness, which has nothing to do with you.
Terri, I know you love your spouse, but he’s a grown man
who knew right from wrong. However he seems to want to
make things right with you again. Its a long road ahead
for you both, and I wish you both well.
Terri,
I can not say this enough your healing will come with time and forgiveness.
Forgiveness is for you, so you don’t internalize this and let it
bring bitterness and resentment. Once that sets in its hard reverse those roots. God will give you the strenght to forgive.
However your spouse has to be doing his part in getting
himself well, so he doesn’t revert back to his old ways
of living. By him getting himself well, and learning how
to be a in relationship without cheating, you then will begin
to learn to trust again, but that trust will not happen as long
as he is not doing his part to change.
You need forgive, but he needs to get himself healthy so this never happens again.
Also start doing things for yourself again that make you happy, there is no need to abandon those things because
your spouse cheated. Live and if he does this again, show him the door.
Oh, I absolutely would show him the door, no doubt about that. I am not one that would be able to forgive and go through this again, not even one little tiny thing would I be able to handle. This is enough for me to handle for the rest of my life. By God’s Grace, I will find that place of peace to be able to let it go, but I realize it has broken and shattered a part of “us” that I can’t get back and I am dealing with that “loss” right now, but willing to move forward. I agree he has to do his part but I think he doesn’t really know how. I am hoping this book will help him although he didn’t even look at it last night or check into it at all. I won’t let it go though. We have counseling tomorrow and I will bring it up in counseling. I can’t make him do anything but I will make it clear that I have needs because of his wrong doing and if he isn’t willing to provide those needs in a willing, loving way, that I will not be able to move forward, I will just be stuck here it seems, going round and round with my emotions. And it is so true Anita, at that point I would have to decide if this is how I want to live and I can tell you know, it is not. Thank you so much for taking time to talk to me.
Terri, I’m a little bit ahead of you. I stated the list of needs to my W, offered her and read several books that clearly show the steps needed; but after a year an a half she has done 30% or so of what I need, has not finished reading any of the books, and is stuck in not moving forward. The discussion this weekend was “either you move towards rebuilding a new relationship or you move towards the door” ; because staying in this “not moving” place is not an option.
Hang in there, I hope he sees and changes for the better, but if not, don’t waste your time!
I’m sorry Ocanas, it must seem to you that she doesn’t really care enough to put the effort into seeing you to healing, and that is exactly how I feel sometimes. Counseling is good to be able to express freely without fear of a fight or a misunderstanding. We are choosing to stay with them for a reason. I hope your SO can get it together.
Terri,
So what about the alcohol part. You mentioned this in your first post only briefly. Is your husband drinking? – is he hiding his drinking?
I am married to an alcoholic. As said many times, alcoholism is not an excuse for behavior. The CS chooses to adulterate his marriage, chooses to work on his marital problems … or not. I do believe that alcohol causes what is termed “the alcoholic brain.” Google this. The drinking aloholic is different. Not just during and a few hours after drinking but daily, weekly, monthly – as long as they have alcohol as a priority.
My D-day was March 29.2012. H has not drank since March 30, 2012. It has made a huge difference. I also hear that he can’t remember many details of EA – was heavily drinking during much of it.
I have been married 28 years. You but 7. We have made it this far despite alcohol, but it would have been so much better without alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against drinking but some people can’t handle it – drink for the wrong reasons, use it as a crutch. Have a better life than I did. Address this issue. But you can’t “fix” it. Only your spouse can.