Hello Everyone!
Betrayed spouses and cheaters alike have fears about their marriage after infidelity.
Consider the following description of fear:
“Fear is an emotional & physiological reaction we feel based on imagining events which have not even happened.”
And as was written in an earlier post on the subject:
“… fear is not who we are, it’s an emotional state we put ourselves in because of our own thoughts.”
Regardless of where you are at in your own affair recovery process, one thing is for sure…since the discovery of the affair, there are so many emotions, thoughts and feelings that have run through your brains. Fear is perhaps one of the most prevalent. Fear of what the future might hold. Fear that your partner might leave you for the other person. Fear that your family will be broken apart. Fear that your relationship will never be the same. Fear that your spouse may never heal from the pain you caused, etc.
We’ve run a topic similar to this several months ago and thought it was time to revisit it. New readers visit on a daily basis while longer term readers typically see a change in their situation based on where they are at in their recovery process at any given moment. Therefore, we wanted to get a feel for what you are most afraid of right now.
With this in mind…
What are your biggest fears for your marriage after infidelity?
Do you feel that your fears are logical and justifiable?
How are you and your partner addressing these fears?
Have your fears about your marriage after infidelity subsided as you travel further down the path of recovery and healing, or are they still there?
What has happened (or needs to happen) for those fears to go away?
Please remember to respond to one another in the comment section below.
Thank you very much!
Linda & Doug
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36 replies to "Discussion – What Do You Most Fear For Your Marriage After Infidelity?"
My fear is that I will never be able to go an entire day without looking at him and seeing her face in my mind. It has been 9 months since d-day and its still there. It is not logical, although maybe justifiable, and everyone says it just takes time. Its horrible.
My fear is that I’ll never be able to move on from the hurtful words no matter how many times my H says that he is sorry. I can’t imagine saying things for over an hour then coming back saying that he was confused and didn’t know what he was saying. I guess that’s the fog? Who knows.
My fear is that I’ll never be able to forget what he did. He started this whole mess by looking his ex up, texting and emails just to see how she is. I would never do this no matter how unhappy i was.We love each other differently.
My fear is that he’ll look her up again. Their reconnection was “fun”. I’m not fun, just damaged.
My fear is that I will feel inadequate to the ‘looks’ and excitement of the OW forever no matter how much weight I lose, fitness I gain and new challenges I succeed at.
That’s my own internal fear.
In terms of the marriage I fear that my H will gradually retreat back inside himself when something gets tough, like work or families, and he will reach for some other fantasy woman again and do it all over again even though he knows how much worse it made his life, not better.
I am probably not in a good place right now to comment more positively. I’m having massive waves of doubt and I don’t know how to talk to my H about them. We went through a good phase of communication but now it seems like he’s a ‘been there, done that’ personality and would rather we didn’t discuss anything other than thinsg that are great and exciting.
My fear is that my wife will never be able to let go of the OM and thus I will never feel safe in our marriage. At times it seems illogical but for the most part it seems justifiable. So far we have dealt with the issue by me stating it as a major concern and her telling me that she will always care for him but that she is committed to our marriage. I had always thought she was committed to our marriage so of course that is about the time that I really start feeling justified. We are nine months in and that fear has not quieted and our relationship stays mired in the mud. The more I think about it the more I need her to fully renounce her relationship and connection to the OM and truly show that she is sorry. And the more I think about it the more I know that will never happen. And the more I think about that the more I prepare myself for the end of our marriage and the devastation it will enact upon our young children.
Being a child or divorce I fear for my children more than I fear for myself.
What are your biggest fears for your marriage after infidelity?
That my husband will cheat again and that all of the work that I’ve put into trying to recover will be wasted….
Do you feel that your fears are logical and justifiable?
Yes because I didn’t think that my husband was capable of such sick and cruel behavior, and now I know that he is capable… and was more than willing to lie to me for a LONG time…
How are you and your partner addressing these fears?
He swears he could never cheat on me again, and I just have to listen and watch like a hawk and hope that one day I can start to trust him again… he is being transparent, but I thought I knew him before… now I am just so skeptical of everything, including his love for me.
Have your fears about your marriage after infidelity subsided as you travel further down the path of recovery and healing, or are they still there?
Fears are still there… I don’t think they will ever fully go away… they have lessened a bit as time has passed and he has shown himself to be committed to making the marriage work, but I didn’t know about the affair before, so he COULD still be seeing it behind my back and just be being a good liar like he was before….
What has happened (or needs to happen) for those fears to go away?
He needs to REALLY face what he did. And he needs to REALLY figure out how he could be such a pig to someone that he supposedly loved. His excuse was that he didn’t think that I loved him, but that he always loved me. I think screwing around on me is a funny way of showing that he loved me… regardless of whether I loved him or not. He needs to deal with the ego issue and realize not everything is about HIM. He is trying on this, I see it. He is putting US first, but he still gets mad when I bring up my feelings about the affair. THAT has to stop.
Last night he asked me what was wrong and I told him that I was feeling stressed with the one year of discovery coming up this weekend, and STILL not knowing what it’s intentions are as far as coming back to the company (it has not responded to my FB message – I don’t know if it even got it or not…). I am under a tremendous amount of stress regarding these things, and all he could do was get mad at me for “always being so negative” and “why can’t you see it as we’ve gotten through a year and we are still together”… He is right, it is also something to be celebrated, but I’ve been having flashbacks of the night I found out, and with those flashbacks come the feelings of that night… he doesn’t seem to understand that even though I’ve tried to explain it to him. He is ready for me to stop looking back and start looking forward. I am, I think, but I don’t want to be seeing roadblocks and the whore in my future…. I HATE her, and sometimes I still HATE him… I am NOT over it… I don’t want what HE did to define me, but it has changed who I am, and not in a good way. I am trying not to let fear rule me, so now I stand up to him when he gets all indignant… I left last night. Left. He was so mad he told me that I needed to leave him alone (I think he just meant to leave the room), but I left and left him a note to call when he was ready to talk. We didn’t talk much, but I got to say what I needed him to hear…. I am not being pushed around and ignored anymore… I am THE WIFE and I will be treated with respect… and if I am afraid it is his job to see that.
Oh man! GOOD for you Recovering! Good for you! I’m in TOTAL agreement that your H has to realize that it’s not going to just disappear because he wants it that way! He has ripped your heart apart….and he HAS to see that and work to repair it!!
I feel a lot of the same exact things you’ve described Recovering.
You’re not alone. I’m also married to a man who wants to “move forward”…which to me…just means, “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore, stop being hurt”.
The CS (in most cases) is very insensative to the time it takes to trust again. And even more insensative to the actual insecurities their wayward behavior has caused us to doubt our own worth…not only as women, wives and partners…but as human beings.
My original fear was that he was still in contact. That wasn’t the case. My fear then turned into thinking that I would never feel norman again. How has he helped me? His actions have changed, but his emotional state is what it was. He has trouble showing any emotions other than happiness or anger. Hurt, sadness, frustration? All come out as anger, so there have been some setbacks, to put it mildly.
These fears have subsided, nearly a year and a half later. However, the base fear, the fear that he doesn’t love me or care that much, is still there. He seemed fine when he cheated, so how would I know if he was at it again? Also, why cheat at all? He has said maybe love isn’t a constant (after a talk where I said there was no way a cheating person loves the person they are married to while cheating), and he’s also said that, in his head, I’d always be there and he never pictured a real life with me not in it. He realized after cheating that this wasn’t the case and, according to him, made him realize how much he did love me. Well, if it can happen once, it can happen again, right? How do I know he’ll deal with it differently this time?
I’m with chiffchaff…my fear is that at present, my husband is not addressing our recovery, has not identified his “why”, and will repeat again when his going gets tough….since we are still not communicating well, I don’t see us getting better…I have changed for myself and my kids, and feel any issues I needed to address in our marriage, I have, but he will not and has not worked on his issues, so I know he will repeat his bad behavior it’s just a question as to when it will happen again. If you cannot work on your why, core issues, they will linger and rear it’s ugly head in the future. Whenever I bring up ea or our problems to resolve, all I get is “let it go, just let things happen”…but I don’t think that’s productive. I don’t want our old marriage as he does, and I fear he can only think that way. I want something new and better that we both bring good positivity to the table for a great future not a comfortable boring complacent future.
Fear I’m finding is harder to deal with than the anger stage. At least that stage can be addressed and resolved with new habits but the fear is consuming and changes your outlook. Today’s blog is perfect timing. My fear needs to be acknowledged and I will address them tonight…thanks for the push…
The fear stage is difficult, it takes confidence and when you’ve been through what BSs have been through confidence is not easily obtained. My H is getting counselling but when I’ve asked him if he has a better idea now why he did what he did he pretty much repeats what he’s said before, i.e. long before any counselling, or will simply say ‘I don’t know’. It doesn’t fill me with confidence that he won’t eventually do it again (and for those that can recall an earlier post of mine just before I kicked him out, he has even told me that he knows he would do it again). His counselling is for porn use, from what I can gather and issues related to sex. That’s all I know. It doesn’t seem to be addressing his affair per se. That worries me a bit if I’m honest as it means that he’s not really doing any introspection about ‘why’ or ‘why I won’t do it again’ – which is more important.
In many ways, as our marriage is definitely happier than it was, it feels better now than it did only 2 months ago, but it still feels fragile. I’m still fragile. Somethings just don’t feel right.
Chiffchaff, trust me on this if his therapy is dealing with porn and sex issues it is dealing with the affair. It’s dealing with the underlying issues that lead up to it, the affair was just a symptom. My same addictions could just have easily lead me to have an affair, I just too lazy to put that much effort in to it, instead it lead to my wife’s affair. Once he gets that stuff sorted out you’ll be amazed at the difference it makes in him and how he relates to you. You’ll know when he is getting close because he will start being able to discuss it with you. You may need to prod him a little bit to get him to open up about it but it needs to be done in a very careful and gentle way as he will be dealing with massive levels of shame and guilt. I would suggest casually mentioning that if he feels like talking about his sessions that you are there for him. I know it goes against being pissed about the affair but it is the only way he’ll be able to open up about it to you.
Thanks Greg. I have asked him if he thinks it’s helping him at all and he’s said that he doesn’t know. He recognises that things have got significantly better between us over the time he’s been in counselling but he says he can’t tell if that’s as a result of it or incidental. I don’t get any sense from him of any shame or guilt for the porn or the affair to be honest. In the past, when I’ve suggested that in his his shoes I would feel guilt and shame and be overwhelmed by it he’s pretty much refuted feeling like that. If I ask him to consider how it feels to be in my shoes he says he can’t. He can’t seem to do empathy or even very minor role play about the situation we’re in.
We concentrate very much on having fun, doing exciting stuff and challenging ourselves and this has been very good and positive for our relationship. It’s the ‘normal’ mundane times I feel worst at. His affair was apparently all excitement (as they all seem to be from here), so I fear that if it’s not always exciting and challenging our limits then he’ll be bored and looking elsewhere. Intimacy has returned, which is excellent, but it brings it’s own new problems that I just cannot talk to him about at all. I feel inadequate as I can visualise the OW, unfortunately (she was very petite), as well as the pneumatic ‘ladies’ he would have got used to on screen, so to speak. I’m just hoping that improves over time and reading some self-help books along that line to help me. It’s very difficult to deal with post-affair stuff in addition to an addiction to porn, as a BS. Inadequacy just doesn’t describe it really.
My primary fear is breaking up of my family. My daughter was 5 years old when my husband told me he was “in love” with someone else and wanted a divorce. I spent the next 24 hours hating his guts and planned to never speak to him again.then something snapped and I realized I could not let a whore who dates married men into my child’s life. I told him I did not want a divorce and it was almost pathetic how surprise d he seemed…anyway they stayed in contact a while I found out later but things appear to have died of “natural causes” as they usually do, lol. I also found out her teenage daughter is a jr. whore who goes to therapy and “intersession”, imagine that.
Ha!! I just took GREAT pleasure in informing my H when I found out his little “friend” had been arrested for assaulting a police officer and disorderly contact! LOL!!
He never really cared for her, it was all about needing the words of affirmation and an ego boost, but still, just being able to point out what a low life she is made my day! 😀
He actually shook his head in disgust…I’m hoping with himself!
I actually told my husband recently the reason I stayed with him was our daughter, specifically I can’t have her grow up around a tramp, or a series of them probably, and he said “you are EXACTLY right about that!” People do surprise you sometimes.
That is too funny, Theresa! My husband told me his ex GF is a pill head, an alcoholic, and crazy, to which I replied Good! Either he was lying or he is severely disillusioned with this tramp. Lol. I love it. and he almost brought this nasty bitch into my daughters life !!! Now that pisses me OFF .
MY fear is that even though it is over that my W will get weak and want that high that she got from the OM. No she does not use drugs but I see the EA as an addiction. No matter how much she knew it was wrong. No matter how bad things in our life was because if the EA, she still needed her fix to feel better.
She knows if she does I will be leaving. There will be no more. Yet in the back of my mind I worry that the addiction is too strong.
That is my fear too Jim. I’ve tried to address it and my husband tries so hard to reassure me he wants no one but me but after all the lies……even our counsellor said he will do what he will do and I have to live with what his actions are telling me now. Just makes me sad that a vow means so little to about 50% of people. I’ve been talking to my teens and tell them all you really have is YOUR OWN INTEGRITY- people will let you down. They don’t know what has happened between thier dad and I, it would crush them.
Good Luck!!!!!!
Oh, I also tell them, there are alot of GOOD people out there, but you have to pick yourself up if someone disappoints you.
All of the above has applied to me along this journey. Now, three months into separation, my fear is mostly that I will never be whole again, some things are a little better, there is more calm, I have to count only on my own recovery now, but I am definitely no happier. I struggle to see a day when this doesn’t rule my every minute of existence, and I bloody well want to move on. I have a “normal” life now, but I don’t enjoy anything in it – and I was a really joyful person three years ago, a real glass half full girl. Where did she go, will I ever see her again?? Trudging through life because I have two kids at home and a job to maintain, doesn’t seem that fulfilling to me! Fear of never feeling true happiness again….
Paula, this is exactly how I am too. I always tried to be happy, cheerful and enjoyed the most simpliest of pleasures. Now it is like same shit different day, I still have the glass though, so hopefully one day soon I can fill it again. Cheers!!!!!
Paula,
Your in a grieving process right now, and it takes time,
as you work through the painful memories, forgive and
remind yourself that time in your life is over and you will
not have to live it again. Paula its only been 3 months, so
be kind to yourself.
When my exhusband and I divorced I grieved that whole
first year. However by the second year I was ready to join
the world again, and I did, I joined different things and took
classes. My pain lessened, and as time went on the pain
eventually goes away.
There are many different stages you will go through, and
in time with forgiveness, you will feel better. I promise
you will feel whole and complete again, and you will feel
like your old self again.
Its great to hear Anita that there is hope. I have been separated for a little over a year, and really never had the opportunity to work on saving my marriage, so for me there were a lot of unanswered questions. I have finally concluded that I may never get them and perhaps the answers are not that important and I have to be OK with that and work on my recovery for me. He has well and truly moved on, moved in and is now playing step dad to her 2 girls. I have no idea how its all going, and again I have to learn to be OK with that. I’m still very hurt but not as obsessive and emotional as I have been daily during the first year. I am moving on and trying to feel whole again.
Now I fear that after 20 years of being in love with 1 man that I will ever find someone for me again. I hate not being in a partnership and I fear the unknown future. I hope that if I do find someone who actually truly loves me (instead of me and her), that it could actually be better.
My fear is that I may never 100% trust my husband again. That the doubt will continue in my head. I fear that she will contact him again and he will fall prey again. I fear I will never again be enough for him. I fear I will be the reason he thinks of her when I ask questions. I fear I will never again be “myself”. I’m still depressed and having anxiety attacks when out in public because, although it’s rare it can happen (but it can), what if we run into her? Doug and Linda, you give me hope in myself and in my marriage. Your life story is so much like mine. Yet a year out, I still have lots of fears that I live with on a daily basis.
My biggest fear is he will go back to her. I’m not sure I will be able to forgive him again if he had another EA. He reassures me all the time that he loves me and won’t jeopardize that again. .He also understands why I feel the way I do. When I bring the OW up, he always defends her saying that she is in a bad situation and she has no friends. Well, yeah! who would want a woman whose main purpose in a relationship is your H.
I have another fear that has been growing. I see the OW at work and even during my off times. Just cannot help it at times. When I do see her, she has been very bitter and angry with me lately.She makes sharp remarks to me and acts like I have done her a big injustice not allowing her to reconnect with my H. I fear she will cause a scene. She has a temper, although in all the years I have known her, I have never seen her get violent. She does scare me for I am a “hippy” from way back as far as my demeanor is concerned.
I am afraid that the last 20 years or at least the last 2-5 years have all been a lie or something I invented. 7 months since D-day, separated and recently discovered evidence of a one night stand or PA. H has no clue what I found. I am afraid that I gave up most of my life for a selfish narcissist who now seems to becoming addicted to porn in place of his EA. Did not have a family because he did not want one, but thought I would get him. Never happened. I am afraid that I will never stop loving him and that it is just over, that his love for me has died. I am also afraid that we might get back together only to fall apart later, or that this liar and cheater is the real him and the man I love was a figment of my imagination. I have never been loved and appreciated as I should have been. I am most afraid that I will never know what that is like. And even more afraid that it will be my choices that make it that way. How can I still love him and be unable to imagine my life without him?! I truly am not afraid to be alone. It’s been a rough week and it is hard to rally again…
I think that my fear at this point in our recovery is that we won’t be able to love each other enough to stay together. We’ve figured out how to become friends again but still a ways to go to getting back to being a couple. Hell we didn’t even know if we would make it this far so maybe we will make it all the way.
My fear is being played a fool again! It’s been three years since D-day and he has never tryed to explain anything to me. At first he told me to just get over it, when I talked about at first he would just get angry! Now if I bring things up he says he doesn’t remember or he says I didn’t do or say that! I think whats kept me stuck is I don’t know the truth, it’s made me rethink all the years we have been married 32 years! I wonder was he doing this our whole marrige! I had so much trust believed everything he ever said to me!when I first found out he said he guesses he just took it for granted I was going to be here forever! And its him not me!
My fear is that I will always not like the man I love, anymore. Finding out that he was capable of doing this and was able to give himself permission for whatever reasons all cheaters do, i.e., slippery slope, was addicted to being in love, loved me, but wasn’t in love with me. In the past year and a half I have heard all these statements from him as his excuses for his bad character.
I know I’m responsible for my reactions and emotions. I also know that he can’t help me at this point. He has changed. He has become the man any other woman would love to know, NOW.
Trust is not about the fear that he will cheat again. I know he won’t. He walks on pins and needles like a broken child and it breaks my heart until I remind myself that I also need to mend my heart and make myself have worth.
We all have habits that are hard to break. His was not wanting to grow up and needing thrills. Those are his words. Mine was creating happiness in our home because of his past relationships and their disfunction. Apparently, I did all the wrong things. What he said he wanted which was peace and harmony became boring to him.
It all comes down to this for me. For four years he told lies to me on a daily basis. That can only say to me that he told lies for the other 8 years we were together, too. He was unbelievably good at it. It came naturally to him. It was his habit. Do I have the grace to accept and forgive, given my deep need to feel safe and have trust.
I don’t want to hinder his progress at all. I truly want him to realize and enjoy his spiritual growth. If I can’t get to a place of not having to remind him of my pain, I will become toxic to him and then I am the cruel one. My pain has not diminished in 18 months. Finding out that I was able to love someone who was capable of hurting me so deeply makes it nearly impossible to deal with myself. And I don’t like that person that did this to me or the person I have become because of it.
I feel much the same way you do Peggy. We have been married for 28 yrs and I have always said what a good man my husband was. “What a nice guy!” was everyone else’s comment. I am afraid that I will never be able to respect him again after he has destroyed our life together. I no longer feel like he was or is a good person. I dont think good people treat others this way. How can I live with someone that I don’t have respect for? I don’t have much respect for myself for allowing him to treat me this way. We have three teenage daughters who know nothing about his betrayal.
He seems to skip along happily through his life while I deal every day with my brokenness. He is going to counseling, but most of the time he says he doesn’t have anything to talk to the counselor about. It has been 18 months since I heard him tell the OW that he loved her and although he has ended his affair, he continues to lie like a rug about everyday things. Why does life have to be so hard? My vows meant something to me. How do we find others who feel the same way about marriage and faithfulness?
MSG, I wish I knew and if you ever find them please include me. After doing a life time of research in 18 months and reading every book, blog and professional report I could get my hands on about affairs and basic human psychology, I have come to the point where I feel more alone in my issues. I am exactly where you are. I have read so many articles on how to win your man back and what men need and I am completely insulted by all of it. Where do they write in depth about vows and commitment? It’s touched upon, but excused away. To the professional arena, my husband was in a fog and made a mistake. He’s sorry so that should be enough if he doesn’t do it again. It’s goes so much deeper for me. The fact that he was capable of consicously making these choices, blatantly lying to me and risked HIS marriage, I have a seriously road block with respect for him. I feel I’m having to compromize all of my ethics to stay in my marriage. Respect is equal to trust. There needs to be an equal win in the outcome of recovery and I find no win for myself at all other then the lesson learned that I can be so swept away by my love for him that I stupidly didn’t read the signs. If I stay with him, I’m basically saying to myself that my morals and ethics aren’t as important as the marriage. And how I feel about myself and the respect I need to have for me will have to be compromised in order to save the marriage. If the marriage was of any importance to him at the time, he would have consciously realized how much he was destroying it and me for a fantasy. Being immature doesn’t give him the right to expect forgiveness from me just because I am mature. Having him tell me now that he loves me feels lacking in authentic emotion. How is his feeling of loving me now different then his feeling of loving her then? What was just us was given away. What I had with my H, little things like love notes exchanged and cards and touches, he gave to her. There is nothing exculsive or special between us now because he made a mistake? And trusting in someone who was capable of betraying me seems weak of me. This is a huge obsticle for me. I’ve read the phrase, “Do you want to be right or be happy”? To feel right with myself is completely neccessary to my being happy.
My husband still works for the same company, they no longer are in a position that they see each other every day, my fear is that they will once again start seeing each again. I am trying to trust again but it is so hard when he admitted that he was ready to leave me for her. It has been a little over a year but there are times of the year that I struggle with trust and there are simple things that he says or does that trigger memories of the affair. For me d-day was my birthday and I wonder if I will ever be able to enjoy my birthday again.
What are your biggest fears for your marriage after infidelity?
I fear that my husband will find a whole different set of reasons to have another affair. The reasoning behind why he felt the need to have an EA is understandable to me. However, it doesnt make what he did right!
I also fear that one or both of us will get comfortable with the marriage again and forget to keep up on Our Connection…therefore lapsing into another tradgedy.
Do you feel that your fears are logical and justifiable?
Absoulutly! After 4 years of marriage he had sex with another woman. I forgave and we moved on….then 14 years into our marriage he had an EA for 1 1/2 years. Whats next?? A full blown PA/EA?
How are you and your partner addressing these fears?
Speaking for myself, I have come to terms that I will always and forever be watching for signs of my H slipping away from me emotionally and or physically. Time is healing the wounds but the scars will forever be mine.
My H has been the complete oposite of how he use to be. Hes kinder, understanding, loving, sharing, and emotionally and physically there for me all the time. and vise versa.
Have your fears about your marriage after infidelity subsided as you travel further down the path of recovery and healing, or are they still there?
In 2 days it will be the 1 year marking the last contact he had with the OW and 15 months since DD. I am finally reaching the point where I feel like Im an improved version of my former self. My self esteem is on the increase and I dont obbsess over the OW as much. This journey, I dont think, will ever come to an end. This is who we are now and Ive learned to just finally accept what is and move on. Ive learned alot about myself and about relationships. I will never repeat the mistakes of my former marriage.
What has happened (or needs to happen) for those fears to go away?
I still have fears that creep up on me. I have to constantly remind myself that my H nor I, are the same people we use to be. He is totally different towards me and with me (in a very good way) and I am not the same person either.
Some times, not very often, our old habits of the way we use to treat eachother or respond to eachother comes out. It is very scary for both of us. We both realize when this happens and just let the moment pass quietly..usually the next day we talk about it, and work thru how we were feeling. Then we both laugh and agree that we dont like how we use to be and will never go back there.
I realised this week that one thing that I fear for our marriage is that I’ve just run out of steam.
I don’t know if other BSs feel like this but it’s now almost a year since I understand that my H was physically with the OW, and just 10 months from discovery. In that time I have had my world turned upside down by my H’s selfishness and need for the attention of any women at all. I have learnt so much about myself, had to make some difficult decisions, changed the things about me I didn’t like and now, this week, I really wonder how much longer I can do it for. I think I’m tired. Tired of the worry, the lack of trust, the lack of effort my H makes. Yes, he’s alot less selfish but I am convinced that it’s only a matter of time until he does this again. Conversations about problems are still only instigated by me. Maybe I just need a break from him for a few nights.
I’m in the same emotional place as you are, chiffchaff. I told my H last night that we should probably call it quits because he tells me that I’m just tearing him down all the time. I know I’m not, but bringing it up still after 18months causes him to get immediately defensive. All the words he says I say are coming from his own mind. I’ve never been verbally abussive to him even during all of this. But if that’s how he feels I don’t want to be the source of his pain any longer, either. I haven’t been able to get past the realization that I could be so in love with a man that was capable of decieving me in such a horriffic way for so long. My H was after the same co=worker for 4 years and she dumped him. Then he told me about it. I know that if she had been on his same page they’d be together now. It’s nearly impossible for me to accept being the second choice out of convenience. He has changed for the better, but I’m not good at all. I told him that it’s just too convenient for him that I’m always here. He knew I’d never do anything like this to him. I keep asking him to switch places with me and try to imagine his reactions if it had been me falling in love with another man. He said he wouldn’t have reacted as strongly as I have. All that tells me is that he was never as in love with me as I was with him. So, what do you do? Financially it would be real bad if we split up, but I want to heal and he’s a constant reminder for me seeing him everyday. No easy answers to any of this.
It’s true, there are no easy answers. I know I have down days and up days. I thik I just need a break, not a long one, just some time off. I love my H very much, I think as a result of all of this he really does ‘get’ that now, but it hurts that he had to do something so selfish and hurtful in order to see it.
The sadness of the situations revealed on this site is overwhelming at times. I think it’s a real shame that more CSs don’t comment, when they have it has been interesting.