Hello Everyone!
Today we’re going to revisit a topic that was actually our first ever discussion topic. Since the readers on this blog tend to “cycle” through, we thought it would good to get some different perspectives about what you fear the most after the affair.
After discovering your partner’s affair, your body is consumed with a myriad of emotions, thoughts and feelings. At some point, you more than likely became afraid. Afraid perhaps of what the future might hold. Afraid that your partner might leave you for the OP. Afraid that your family will be broken apart, etc.
With this in mind…What are your biggest fears after the affair? Are your fears logical and justifiable? How are you and your partner addressing these fears?
Thank you very much for your contributions!
Have a great day!
Doug & Linda
34 replies to "Discussion: Your Biggest Fears After the Affair"
My biggest fear is that his regrets and promises are only words…. That as soon as he feels “safe” again, the game is on again…..
I understand…I think that’s my biggest fear as well, especially as he’s never actually acknowledged any of it. He knows how hurt I’ve been, and lately he’s stopped denying it–since I found a love song he wrote that was obviously for her (at a time when he was telling ME he had “no songwriting in him” –we’ve got many songs from earlier years).
And perhaps there are others as well.
He’s acting much more devoted and better, but I have no real way of knowing it isn’t all still happening–just in a way that I haven’t found yet.
My fear is that if I forgive him move forward give my whole heart back to him, he will find away in the future to find her again. He knows where she lives, her phone number, her email address and even her friends. When I am boring again to him will he go looking for her for excitment. That is my greatest fear. I would rather get through all the hurt and anger and loneliness and be a whole person again than to go through this again, I dont think I can. Everyday when I go to work I wonder if today is the day he is looking her up online. I know he loves me, I know he want to be married to me, I also know that when he was with her he had the “best time of his life” and it was exciting. He wants his cake and eat it too. I do believe he misses her and all the fun they had. The bond between them was strong and I dont think it will ever go away. Let face it I know when you love someone like that you will keep a little piece of your heart to them even though they will deny it until dooms day. After me thinking for over a year that it was over between them, he came clean and told me that he went to see her 3 weeks ago for closer. For once he didnt lie to me and told me the truth. He sasys he feels better now and all he wants is me, but he has said that before so now my fears are bigger than before. I keep wondering if I am making a mistake even though I love him so. I guess time will tell it always does. Doug and Linda thank you.
Same fear here – that he still loves her and will end up going back to her, if he hasn’t already.
I was laying in bed this mornign wondering where onthis site I could go too and ask my questions. I am fearful. My husband has not outwardly said that we will work on our marriage, however he has kind of moved back home and sleeping back in the bed with me. He has a small amount of clothes in a bag that he is using here at home, so they have not yet made it back to the drawers. Maybe he is getting a feeling before he makes the big move again. Sussing me out to see if I will freak out again… maybe!
Anyway, I am going by his actions more than anything at the moment.
I am fearful that he will go back ot the ow. I am fearful that he is still on contact with the ow even though he has said he isn’t. I am scared of my family being broken.
I am scared that he will find me boring. What I am most fearful of is not changing. I have heard so many say that they are not wanting to go back to the pre affair marriage that something has to change and yes I agree with that. What I worry about is does that mean that the routine of sitting down each evening and watching t.v, does that need to change? We still do that like old times and I am afraid that it will drive him back to her. Does change mean that, changing the routine of what you always use to do?
Are we suppose to be up and doing exciting things, do I ask him how he is feeling or doing? Do I ask him to share his feelings with me? or do I just wait for him to open up. I don’t want to pester, however I feel like we are not sharing anything close and personal at all at the moment. It is like we make it through the day and are getting on well and that is all at the moment. I am glad we are gettin gon well, don’t get me wrong, it is just not very personnal at the moment.
Anyway, if you have any answers for me, please let me know. I am lost today. Thanks
Hi there,
I know it’s been some years since you wrote that post, but was wondering if you were able to move forward? As I am feeling exactly like that wright now, it was like they were my words.
that I’ll never be forgiven.
You know, I never had the fear that he would leave me. I don’t know why…maybe because I was so determined to leave him. However, I didn’t.
I guess my biggest fear is that he will do it again. Not in the near future but some years down the road. Now that I know he is capable of doing it… I know it can happen again.
My Greatest fear is that i do not stay the way i have been in the past year and in that i mean i have been a different person and one that my husband has fallen in love with all over again.It feels that for the past year we have been on honeymoon and i never want that to change.I know now that this takes alot of work and communication is the key.I am still trying on a daily basis to be a changed person .I never want to go through this again
Noles, You may be afraid because you are putting too much pressure on yourself to be the perfect wife. For a long time I believed that Doug fell in love with me again because I become a different person, when I look back I realized that we both fell in love with each other again because we changed our relationship. These changes allowed us to treat each other differently, provided opportunities to relieve stress and have fun and brought us closer. Individually we may have changed a few things but it was the change in our relationship that saved our marriage. Linda
I fear that I won’t get over this. I hate that the ow enters my thought and consumes time in my mind. I fear I won’t forgive him and be able to move forward. I fear her contacting him and how he will react. I fear for my mental health the most, when I am having a good time and feeling happy the memories of his lies and being with her come back.
same fear, that time will pass and that the fall out for him wasn’t really that horrific…I am still here, doing my part, securing life for the family on a daily basis, working, cleaning, cooking, paying all the bills that he can’t pay because he is in a place of financial suffering because of is EA…so, since he has no hurt…no real hardship..will he just go there again, does he even notice i am miserable in this whole thing…why can’t he see that I am suffering? he doesn’t want to “re live it”…but I can’t seem to put it out of the back of my mind…the thought of our marriage, not even close to the marriage it was before. although he has stopped his drinking….his affair was during daylight hours…when he was sober…fears….are terrible..but if i keep moving, will i get side swipped again? I feel like i am afloat in a sea with no oar
I share many of the same fears and worries as stated above —
I guess it boils down to worrying that old patterns will re-emerge. Resentment during times when I have a high workload and need to sacrifice some of our time together (no way around it sometimes), omitting bits and pieces of the truth so as not to start a fight, withholding his feelings under the assumption that “it will get better eventually– all that passive-aggressive BS.
I am very much afraid of other women. AND his ability to maintain appropriate boundaries. Even just yesterday, I was grilling him about the depth of his interaction with the woman that cut his hair.
We’re not married, but we’ve been together for 7 years. He now says he wants to get married — that he’s finally sure. I’m afraid that he’ll change his mind again. I’m also afraid of marrying someone who has cheated on me. Sometimes I find myself wondering in what universe is that ever a good idea?
My fear is that nothing I do will be good enough, that the damage was done and my best efforts will yield nothing. That we will go through the motions of trying to repair our marriage, but that he will still see it as too little too late.
I also fear that, with time, he may forget what she’s really like and he may begin to romanticize the affair in his mind and long for it again, despite all my efforts to be the kind of wife I should have been. I’m afraid that he will eventually turn back to her (if he hasn’t already) because they work for the same company and their paths do cross from time to time.
My biggest fears have just been realized. From my other posts I had mentioned that he is her supervisor and they could get fired. He moved her in across the street from us under a different name. He has been only 100 ft away from his family, while being with her…sneaking out at night, etc. he has been bringing her over to our home while I’m at work, even when the kids are home. My 4 year old made a comment to my husband and I. He said She comes over when your not here. When I told him that she wouldn’t come over here again, his response was..yes she will dada lets her in. Even 4 year olds pick up on what is going on. I’ve caught my husband talking on the phone with her while putting th echildren to bed. He can’t even focus on telling his kids a bedtime story. The latest s that I came home and found her hiding naked in my bedroom. My husband had his shirt off. He insists she just came over to take a shower. I told him he was full of 2345, but he is sticking to his story. he has now brought her into not only every aspect of his life, but mine. She has been around my kids, in my home(having sex with my husband) and who knows if shye has been going through my personal things. I had books sitting around about affairs and recovering from them and she has probably seen them. I’ve asked my husband not to let her in, but he just gives me empty promises. No matter what I say to him, he insists he wants his marriage. I told him that he can leave the marriage and then he would be free to do whatever he wants. I fell very violated. It’s like he just doen’t care how I feel or have any sense of boundaries. I even told him that if he does end up with her, it would not work out between them because their relation is just based on lies and deceit. I’m at a loss as to what to do next. He did reluctantly agree to couseling, but I’m not going to go. I don’t want to give him the excuse to say that he tried and it didn’t work out. He says it’s over, but I know that’s a lie. Any advice please….
RR, I cannot imagine what you must be going through. Your husband’ thoughtless and selfish actions are reprehensible to say the least. In my opinion, some very tough love is in order. One of the experts who we have mentioned in the past, Dr. Willard Harley, who authored “Surviving an Affair,” (look for it in our Library) has a strategy he calls Plan A and Plan B, which is pretty intense, but appears to be effective. You might want to check it out and see if it’s plausible for you. Here is an article where he describes what Plan A and Plan B are: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8113_ab.html
I fear that I will never again have the comfort, love, and security in “us” that was once present. I fear that in this one life I’m given, that I will end up not having respect for my husband after everything is said and done, and I also fear looking into the eyes of my precious daughters and not being able to tell them to find a man like Daddy to marry.
I caught him looking at suggestive YouTube videos after I was asleep last night and he admitted why. I don’t know who he is anymore, and I thought I was doing better. Now, I’m afraid I’m stuck with someone who is not really sincere in helping “us” to move past what he did to destroy our lives. This is so hard sometimes, there should be a company who offers free vacations away from adulterers so the betrayed spouse can catch their breath.
My greatest fear has happened. I tried to protect my teenage children from knowing about his affair. They have found out. Now, not only I, have been striped of the innocence of believing that it is possible to find someone to love and respect you if you do the same to them! It is what ‘we taught them’ “love and respect goes together” anyplace in your life. They also now know that the man in their lives that they most respected, because he has been an amazing father ,and they were very close to, is a selfish coward, and that things like us, was not enough to stop him from accepting another woman in his life and quite willingly. He wanted to have both, his family and his OW.
Post affair through hard work and communication we have acknowledged some of the problems in our marriage, things that we could have done differently, but NOTHING will ever justify or make sense in such a destructive act.
The family that we had and it was so beautiful, is broken. My children will have the knowledge to soon in their lives that loving, respecting and giving so much to someone without barriers, makes you vulnerable to being squashed under one’s act of selfishness. How can I show them that it can be different for them?
I am so, so sad. I have lost everything I stood for. My values, there is no place for them here. My beautiful family is still here but not as we knew it. Our lives changed beyond words hopefully not beyond repair. I doubt sometimes that is is possible to overcome such pain, such betrayal and the outcome, the cathartic changes that never stops. I hurt so badly like all the other posting here, I know. Often I doubt my ability to move forward and to forgive. Most of the time I doubt my ability to survive. But keep trying to get from one day to the next, the best way possible.
I am in the same situation as you…and feel your feelings. My 2 teenage children and 20 year old son have also been affected. That was 4 months ago…and my H’s affair with a co-worker soiled so much. You have to hang on…and hang in there. This is the advice I give myself (as well as depending upon this site…and my faith.) Do something for YOU – it helps. I have started a fitness regime to balance all of my weight loss (under all this stress.) Therefore I am strengthening my physical being, I attend marriage counseling with my H to strengthen my internal self, and attend mass each Sunday/am becoming active in my faith to strengthen my spiritual side. This all helps – please try my advice and let me know.
All the best to you…
Dear changedforever
Thanks for your reply. Such a welcome wise words from someone that understand this pain exactly as it is. The problem is that we have done already so many changes to our lives trying to atone the destruction, but it seems that nothing brings the peace that I need in my life, and to feel that it is possible to see the light again. I have done for myself in few months more than I dared to do in years because I had always been to careful with family finances, etc. I am back studying in the evenings, I have traveled/gone out by myself and with friends, and having been pursuing some of my greatest love in life! God also provided changes in my working life, at the time that I needed most, it is funny how it happens that way! My husband changed job so we can spent more time together and we go for counseling once a month. And we read books, do things together and we talk . I find great support here in this site, in all the comments from the post.
Now, what worries me. As we/I have been doing all we can in my power to heal, why does it still hurt so much? How long it will hurt for? I read here someone questioning that, if we spouses split up, would that stop the pain? Unfortunately (or fortunately it depends how you see it) I don’t believe that it would. I believe that if we can survive this catastrophe in our lives and heal together, it is a lesser bad outcome. And we will still have a family; changed but still a family. I just long for some small feelings of joy in my life, the joy I had before, but I fear that it will never be free felt as it was before this disaster struck us, as now my feelings are constrained. It is just so sad. Just plain sad that someone so close to us can hurt us so deeply and so lasting! Can’t even mention forgiveness…
Thank you. Wishing you well too.
Doug could you kindly correct the word ‘funny’on my post. There shows the stress on tipping too quickly and not reading back.
“Tipping” ??? LOL! 😉
Yes. You caught me! Under stress and anger I fault! English is not my first language! Sorry!!! I am guilty! :-))
I understand! Just ribbing you a little!
I fear so many things……..I would not even know where to start. I greatest fear is that I will not be able to get over what my wife has done. I hurt inside so bad some days, I can’t even stand it. I am truly devastated by what she has done to me and our family. I also have another greatest fear is that one day I will wake up and come to realize that I cannot be married to her. I try and put that thought out of my mind, as soon as it enters, but it is hard. I fear that I will not be able to forgive her and be able to move forward. It has been almost month and half since I found out and the pain is still there everyday. I fear that if I do not put this past me, everything will be over. I also hate that the op enters my mind and consumes me. I fear so much that I will never be able to love my wife the way I should. I feel so helpless at times. I fear that I will never be able to remember those good times we shared. I try and think back before the EA she had and things seem fuzzy to me. I can only hope that we will be able to make it, but no one can say what things will be like in a year.
Regardless of how things turn out, I will do whatever it takes to make sure that my two son’s do not make the same mistakes that I did. And if it means that I have to go through all this, just to spare them the same pain and hurt, I would do it without question anyday of the week. I will NEVER forget my dad hugging me the day after I found out about my wife’s EA. He was crying and telling me he was so sorry for what I was going through and would do anything to take away the pain I was feeling. He said he was so sorry for not telling me what was more important about being a good husband. I was so sad. I now know that even though the EA that my wife had, was not my fault, I however did and did not do some things that helped her down that road. And I will have to live with that. Point being is that I need to teach my son’s life’s lessons and make sure I help them in anyway I can.
I think like everyone else seems to have expressed here, I fear it happening again, or that it is STILL happening and he’s just dug deeper into some way I can’t find out. I fear being the fool again. I fear being lied to. I fear finding out that, though he’s been sweet to me lately and very loving “in front” of everyone we know, perhaps it’s all just a way to throw me off and keep me “happy”.
He was very sneaky about things before, and he was all about talking me down to our friends and community–by secret email accounts and FB messages he thought I wouldn’t ever see. I fear going further to try to monitor things, and losing a delicate healing that is taking place, but I also fear this healing is really not happening and is all just as false as his so-called “love” for me was in the past few years, when he would say wonderful things to my face and cut me down behind my back or sneak around to see people, especially her, while I was at work.
I fear that I won’t be able to ever truly let this go. I know I have to in order to move on, but it is so much more difficult than I ever thought. I’m a pretty forgiving person normally. I feel like there is something wrong with me that I can’t completely forgive this no matter how much I tell myself that I want to. I believe my husband when he tells me he doesn’t still have feelings for her and that he loves me, but then doubt creeps in and I start thinking he claims to have loved me all along yet this still happened. It truly is a viscous cycle. I want to be strong enough not to let the doubt and fear suck me back in. I have good days and bad days in the doubt department.
That’s exactly how I feel, Jenny. Today is a bad day. It’s 4 months today since my D-day, so it doesn’t help to make Valentine’s Day special. Two days ago, I believed my husband. Today I’m full of doubt.
I have the same fear that most seem to have, that H will do this again sooner or later. Now he is depressed and has difficulty knowing what he wants, who he is, or what direction he wants to go. He is still in limbo. Generally unhappy, but trying to do the right things in life, that is keep his job, take care of the kids, be responsible etc… All good. But he as he is coping with these right things, it seems to leave him no room to work on us. He is such a broken, and lost man lately and it is sometimes very lonely to be around someone who just wants to be left alone all the time. How long do you let him be?
In this state of mind, I know he is capable of having another affair, if someone happens to come along and give him attention, makes him feel good and alive. I give him loving attention, admiration, caring and kindness, but as I say, he just wants to be left alone all the time.
How does one repair the relationship if H is depressed and wants to be left alone?
The same fear is prevalent in all the comments. The fear they will do it again. The same fear I have had. But after a year of new discoveries, including new things that we have recently discussed, there is no reason to believe it won’t. My best friend was a repeat offender.
One thing he told me was the first time was the hardest. Each time after got easier and easier to do. Because the fear and stigma that keeps most of us from doing it was already out of the way. The mistakes that got him caught gave him skills to better hide it.
Another thing is that his wife has always been emotionally distant. When things changed they only changed for some time. Because she tried to hard to be the woman she thought he needed. This made her resentful and she eventually went back to the way she was. She had changed for him but not for her. And the cycle started over. I know he has a love for her, he cares for her. But he feels lonely and distant in her heart. So he needed to fill that with something. He unfortunately filled it with another woman’s company. It wasn’t the sex. It was the connection, the open and free personality, and the adventure.
I see that cycle starting over with him. I see the frustration in his eyes. I see the lonely guy he was before over and over again. I know this time he is in counseling. He talks to me quite a bit. And he genuinely doesn’t want to feel that way.
But, and isn’t there always a but, he now fears that he doesn’t have the freedom to speak his mind. He robbed himself of that freedom by his own choices. And he feels he will never have that right back.
Does my wife feel the same way. She never had anything to say about me before the affair. During the affair I heard it all. And now its been months without a word of anything I may have done to upset her. I know I do. And maybe in some way I do things now to bring out a word or two. “Hey ass hole take out the trash” or “why don’t you take our son to practice”. But they don’t come. She is silent with anything negative that she should say.
So will this be another cycle that leads her to right back to him to complain about me. Maybe. Who knows. I know I’m not going to fear what MIGHT happen. If it does, or I discover it has been, I will address it then.
Yes, Michael – one of the reasons I feel he may do it again is – just like you said – that he will feel he needs to be open and free to express himself and to connect with someone, and that he can’t do that with me. My husband also never says anything about things I do that upset him. They must be there – they were certainly there in abundance during his affair. I know he thinks that I’m fragile now and wounded, and maybe he’s afraid to say anything. But will that make him feel that he needs someone else? It often makes me feel that I cannot be open and honest with him. I hide my pain so that he will feel connected in our relationship. And there it is all over again – neither of us being open and honest with each other. And will that drive him to another affair? Or back to the same OW? I don’t know. I am struggling with it.
I fear that I may never be the same person that I was before my husband’s EA. It’s been almost 6 months since I first found out what was going on, and the pain is still as intense now as it was then. He promises that nothing is going on and, though I try my hardest to believe him, I still find myself doubting him. I hate the person who I’ve become… I hate constantly checking emails and texts, phone logs and our phones’ GPS system to see where he’s at all the time. May will mark our 5 year anniversary, and in all the years leading up to this affair I NEVER ONCE doubted his fidelity. I never put limitations on him or questioned him about what he was doing. If he told me that he was going to be running late from work, or that he was going to go out with the guys for drinks, or whatever, I never doubted him. I never checked up on him because I trusted him with all of my heart. Now, I don’t even believe him when he says he’s stopping to get gas on the way home from work. I hate who I’ve become.
In all of this, I have forgiven him for what happened. He blames a large part of it on my attention being focused on our 2 and a half year old son, so I have tried to focus equal attention on my husband. I always thought that I was a good wife – I always had dinner ready for him exactly when he would get home from work, I always made sure he had clean clothes, the house is always clean (with the exception of our son’s toys out during the day), and I always thought that he knew how much I loved and adored him. Even though I’ve forgiven him for what he did, and have tried to be all that he needed from me, I still can’t forget what happened. Even worse, I can’t trust. Before I found out about the affair, I had been trying to get pregnant. Now, he keeps telling me how much he wants to have a baby with me, but I don’t buy it. I feel he’s just trying to appear loyal and committed – I mean, why else would he want a baby with me, right?! I’m not that naive. The bummer is, I want one too. I love being a mom, but I don’t know how to bring another life into this world with someone who I don’t trust. If he returns to his old ways in the future, I know that my son and I will be okay. He’s such an amazing little boy! He’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I don’t think I could make it on my own with him and a baby though.
My biggest fear… no matter how hard I try, or how much time passes, our marriage will never be the same. I look at old pictures of smiling faces and joyous times and I’m saddened by the realization that those people may be gone forever. It sure feels like I’m gone.
I fear I will never be the same happy person I was, I found out 8 weeks ago my husband of 15 years had a 10 month affair, he is in the army and was away of various courses which enable him to continue the affair. I had no idea. He has just left for a tour of afghan and I fear that if anything happens my memories of him have been contaminated by the affair. I don’t know how I can get over this, it has destroyed me and I fear we will never recover for this.
That I lost me
My kids are a big part of me.
I’ll never have the joy, serenity, safety of being loved, by anyone, of knowing I am loved unconditionally.