SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello all. I am a 30f who’s been married to me husband 33m for three years. Together for six years total. In December 2020/January 2021 I had an affair with a coworker. I will not make excuses or lay blame. What I did was wrong and I own it. I could have at any time made the decision to not carry on with the affair but I did it any way.

I know many who cheat will say the AP said and did all the right things and they were tricked into it or something. Yes my AP did all of those things but I knew what we were doing was wrong and I did it any way. It was the worst mistake of my life and I have regretted it ever since.

Dday was mid November of 2021. The guilt of what I had done tortured me for almost a year before in admitted to my husband what I had done. After I ended my affair I had resolved to be the best wife I could be and for most of 2021 I dedicated myself to my husband and our marriage. But the guilt was always there. To the point that I actually was having physical effects. I had shingles from stress and told my husband it was work related stress. He was so thoughtful and supportive about it and I just couldn’t lie to him anymore.

Needless to say he was devastated. He immediately cut me off, wouldn’t speak to me for a week and threw me out of our bedroom and told me to sleep in the guest room. After about a week and a half he finally let me have it and vented all his hurt and anger onto me. I will say he said some hurtful things to me but who can blame him? I told him that I was sorry, so sorry for what I had done and begged him for forgiveness.

We went on like this for a while. Him ignoring me and refused to even look at me. He’d spend his days at work and his evenings in the basement or out on the garage. Around Christmas he told me he wanted me out of the house, which I agreed to. He owned the house before we were even dating so I felt like he had the right to ask me to leave. However because of my dad being sick he agreed to keep up appearances until after the holidays for his sake.

Well on Christmas morning he told me he couldn’t spend the day with me and we’d better just spend it with our respective families. That evening he came home quite drunk and I told him if he was drinking he should have called me to come get him. We ended up having a huge argument and he broke down in tears. It was only the second time I’ve ever seen him cry. He called me a few choice names I won’t repeat. It hurt badly to hear this but I felt like his anger was justified.

We avoided each other for the next week and finally on New Years he told me that he wasn’t sure what he wanted. He said on some days he hated me with all his heart and wanted to throw me out of the house. On other days he said he wanted to hug me and tell me that we can work this out.

I was trying to find a place to live all this while but it was very hard because of the current market where we live. He said he didn’t mind if I continued to stay. For the most part he was at least polite with me but that was about it. We talked about both of us getting counseling. I found a therapist but he never did.

My husband told me he’d found my AP’s fiancé on Facebook and was going to message her about what we had done. Which he went ahead and did. The woman contacted him and they spoke, then she contacted me and it was a very unpleasant conversation to say the least.

In February he matter of factory told me he was going to Las Vegas with his brothers for a week. He didn’t tell me this until a day before he left. I asked him if he was going out there to get revenge on me. He told me that he felt like what he did was no longer my business. When he came back he told me he didn’t do anything out there except gamble and go to a concert. He also said he still hasn’t told any of his family what’s going on between us.

My family knows what’s going on because I told my parents and my sisters. My parents are very disappointed in me. My sisters both are trying to be non judgmental but I can tell they don’t understand why I didn’t what I did.

I finally moved in with a friend last month and have been staying with her. My husband and I speak once a week. I’ve asked him about him getting therapy but he keeps telling me that he’s not the one who needs therapy, I am. I’m worried about him. I know that might not seem true but I am worried. I do still love him and I hate to see him hurting,

Now the bombshell from last weekend. I went to pick up a few things from the house and I spoke with my husband. He was avoiding eye contact with me the whole time. My heart sunk because I instinctively knew what had happed so I asked him. He was seeing someone wasn’t he? He admitted that the weekend before he had met up with a woman he knew through his job and they ended up having sex.

It felt like a gut punch. I knew this might happen. I know revenge affairs happen but I thought it wouldn’t happen. He was very upset and he apologized to me repeatedly. I asked him if he was going to see her again and he said no, he said he was so angry with me before but after he left her apartment he just felt sad and alone. I know it is hypocritical of me but I was so hurt by all this I just left and refused to speak to him.

So that’s where we are right now. I was hoping that we might be able to reconcile some day, but now I think it might truly be over. I don’t know if he even wants to reconcile, my own thoughts are all over the place right now. I’m ashamed of myself, and I know it’s hypocritical but I’m also angry at him. He said he was sorry and he did truly seem distraught but it hurt me so badly.

He texted me Thursday night to say he was off this whole weekend and could we talk. I still haven’t responded. I just feel so lost as to how to proceed right now.

Welcome to SI. I'm sorry you're going through this. I don't really have any advice but I just wanted to welcome you. There are a lot of helpful posters here. Some of it is convicting but it's gotta be said. Best of luck to you, I'm sorry for what you're going through. Cheating is never okay, no matter what side of the spectrum you're on.

Actually one word of advice would actually be to get yourself into IC for yourself, not just for your husband.

Best XX

Hi JPL,

Sorry you're here. You're what we call a madhatter (MH). It's a double shit sandwich for you both- you're BH cheated on you and now you're a WW AND BW too. There's several of us here who are MH's. One was in a similar situation to yours as she cheated first and then her BH had an affair during the year after DDay when she was working hard on herself. I'm kinda a MH as my BH had an EA with a friend before I had my full blown PA with a co-worker.

Are you in IC now? It's going to be critical to your healing to lean on the advice and coaching to get you through this time.

he keeps telling me that he’s not the one who needs therapy, I am.

You BOTH need therapy. My BH refused therapy after our Dday for about a year. His anger only became more and more out of control, yelling, throwing things at me, waking me out of sleep in the middle of the night and shouting and refusing to leave while I'm lying vulnerable on the bed. He lost it, as is unsurprising. He didn't start to get a grip until I said, you find an IC, or I can have you sign the D papers I had written up.

Not saying that you need to D him before he gets IC, but he really does need it. He not only was betrayed, he cheated on you too.

You cheated first, but that doesn't excuse his. I would be wary of what he did in Vegas too- maybe he wasn't sleeping around, but maybe he was clubbing? My BH found out about my affair and a few months later was on Tinder and Catholic Match (of all things!) to "see what he was missing." I called him out on it, he called me a hypocrite, but he deleted the apps. It seems like that's a natural urge for a BH- to get out there and see if his manhood isn't totally destroyed by his wife's PA.

I’m ashamed of myself, and I know it’s hypocritical but I’m also angry at him.

This is natural. Shame from being a WW and anger at being made a BW too. This is the double shit sandwich I talked about earlier. Your MH husband will be going through the same things as you at different times. There will be the shame (he couldn't look you in the eyes) and the anger. He may even blame you for "causing his affair." That is utter garbage as he could have D'd you. Just as I could have D'd my BH.

Going forward, you are both going to have to make some decisions. It doesn't seem like you have kids, and you're both relatively young. You could cut your losses and move on and still have the potential to have a M and family with other people. It's difficult to D, recover and find another person. Recovery from cheating and being a cheater whether you D or not takes 2-5yrs, at least from what we've seen in the lives of posters here. It can happen, it does take work, but it does take time.

You're both going to have to recover from your own waywardness and from the cheating the other did to you. That alone is going to be minimum 2 years of hard work and journeying within. How about you both slow down, do a separation until you can figure this out? It would require both of you to be in IC. Unless you are CLEAR on what you can and can't live with, (AND YOU'RE NOT) making a big decision this early is unwise.

You've invested much of your young adulthood in each other. It sounds like from your post that you genuinely do love and care for him. It sounds like you're open to R with him. It's just that you can't R alone and he is so lost.

It seems like your BH/WH is lost right now and doesn't know himself or what he wants. Yes, your cheating cut his moorings and shattered all that he thought he knew about his life and himself. Still, he had it in him to cheat, as he pursued and obtained sex from a coworker. That's not something (as you know) that you can do blindly or accidentally as an adult. Let alone as someone who has been cheated on. He was thinking of only himself (as you know) and to him, in that moment, you were an object of contempt. Can you forgive that and trust him again? Can he forgive you?

You can recover from this, both of you, even together. We've got a group of MH's on this site who have gone through this and made it out the other side.

Welcome to the greatest club no one wanted to join.

MIgander,

Thank you so much for your response. I had originally tried posting about my situation on another forum and was bombarded with people alternating between insulting me and asking for explicit details about my affair. It scared me off of posting for a while. But this forum seems much more of an understanding place.

Yes I am in IC right now. I have been since January. I have to try and figure out why I did what I did before I can move on with my life. Not the surface reasons that I told myself before the affair, but what is wrong with me that I’d do this?

And yes, I DO love my husband very much. Yes I am heartbroken over his choice to seek out a revenge affair. But I still love him. Isn’t this a special kind of hell that we’re both in right now? How can we ever trust each other again?

I worry about him. I know he needs IC but I don’t know how to bring it up to him. The last few times I’ve mentioned it he shuts me down. Does he take it as a sign of weakness? Perhaps. I know his idea of his own masculinity has been damaged by my affair. I tried to tell him it wasn’t an indictment of him as a man, it was my own weakness but I doubt he listened to me. Maybe soon I’ll post some about both of our backgrounds that may explain why he’s so stubborn when it comes to this.

He asked if we could talk this weekend and I said I think we both need our space right now. The hurt and anger are just too much right now. He said that was fine and he apologized to me again for what he did. I apologized to him and told him that I love him still but we need to both figure out what we want moving forward.

[This message edited by JustPlainLost at 2:48 AM, Sunday, April 3rd]

Hi JPL,

I can see him not wanting to take your advice on the IC from a few different sides. Not only how his mom poisoned him against it, but because he sees you as a hypocrite right now. That and youre the source of so much of his pain. Its like breaking a neighbors window and telling them to fix it themselves. Really, youre trying to tell them they need to hire professionals and that youd gladly support them by footing the bill. Right now, your husband is so angry and broken, he doesnt even know WHAT he needs.

Theres some back and forth on the site about whether codependency is actually a thing, but youre exhibiting those behaviors right now. Youre trying to do his work for him by pushing the IC and hanging on to it. It is his choice whether to get help or not. You can attach consequences to that choice, like, "I dont see any hope for R unless we are both getting professional coaching through this. I wont feel safe enough to continue trying for R with you until you get into IC."

This makes it about your needs and your feelings. It leaves the choice up to him. He can decide to get IC and know it keeps the door to your heart open. Or he can decide his hangups about it are too much to pursue it. He can decide that the juice isnt worth the squeeze. Then you will know it is time to move on and be at peace knowing you were honest about your needs.

Hello to the people who commented on my post. I spoke with my husband earlier today and we are going to talk this weekend. Right now I am not even sure what I’m going to say to him. I’m torn between R and just saying the damage is too severe and D is our only option. I am going to tell him that if R is something he’s interested in then he has to dog into IC. Without that it’s a non starter and we may as well go our separate ways. I don’t know what else to do.

My husband may be hesitant to go into IC because he may see it as a sign of weakness. He had a very tough upbringing. His father was very tough on him and his brothers. Both physically and emotionally abusive. His mother was the same way and was in and out of his life. When he was 18 he basically ran away and joined the marines to escape his home life. He has said to me many times that nothing he faced in the military was as terrible as how he grew up. Isn’t that awful? He actually went into the marines and felt like boot camp wasn’t as bad as being home.

I’m hoping that he will be open to my suggestion if he knows it’s our only chance of R. I believe he way want to at least try R for a couple of reasons. First off he still hasn’t told his family about what I did. He said it’s none of their business right now. Secondly when we hung up the phone he told me he still loves me. Hopefully we can start the long process of healing.