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I am a BS and I have told my husband I doubt I will ever feel the same about him again. He says this is fine he loves me and he wants to be with me and maybe I will feel different in the future. I doubt I will.

His initial excuses for his behaviour when I discovered his EA was he thought I didn’t love him anymore 😂. He thought I was cheating and I wasn’t affectionate enough etc . The usual sorry story. I am not as affectionate and not as romantic but I am honest and I really loved him. I know he was seeking external validation, he had poor coping techniques and lived in his head and he is working very hard and discussing things he would previously keep to himself. He is reading and acknowledging shame and maladaptive coping techniques, stopped drinking totally etc. I think he is doing the right things. I’m okay with what he is doing. Finding a counsellor not pushing unmet needs is proving tricky and I now laugh and say my need for fidelity is an unmet need does that mean an affair will make it better? Im strong enough to laugh it off and my self esteem is good.

However why is he now okay to tolerate me saying I don’t love you like I used to and I doubt I ever will? You were once someone I adored and would have done anything for but those feelings have gone. Some days I tell him I don’t like him at all.

Why is this okay when he didn’t cope with me loving him? It seems illogical.

Hi Abcd, I am sory for what has happened to you and I wish you that your spouse can find a way to recover the marrige as much as possible.

People are prone to a cognitive bias that makes us to much more appretiate things that we lost or that we are in danger of loosing. It's called loss aversion.

Probably not the most satisfying answer, but loss changes the perspective and I'm sure all of us felt it in some situation.

Thank you for your reply. He says that he believes I will love him that way again. I’m not sure if that’s optimism, hope, naivety or he’s saying it for my sake.

Reality hit and he realised what he would lose for sure. It’s funny how they think the kids will be happy for them. We get on really well, hobbies, interests, both happy to give anything a go, we have fun. It’s a shame really that he didn’t appreciate what he had.

I think it angers me that what I previously gave wasn’t enough apparently yet here I am, being honest, saying how (little) I feel and that’s okay for him!

Loss aversion seems likely.

Think of it as a form of hysterical bonding for the WS. They are faced with the reality of losing the marriage and now would do anything to keep it.

Much like hysterical bonding, this may fade. Now is the time for him to do the real work of changing himself and learning new coping techniques. He needs to use his fear of losing you to propel himself toward healthy.

Why on earth would you take your wall down without seeing significant effort on his part to EARN your love and respect? His wanting the marriage isn't enough. He needs to put in the work.

That may be the only thing that starts to lower your wall. With that wall firmly up, your feelings of love and respect are damned up.

I think it angers me that what I previously gave wasn’t enough apparently yet here I am, being honest, saying how (little) I feel and that’s okay for him!

I guess there was minor incompatibility in how both of you express yourselfs onto which he projected all his lebensschmerz. It is fascinating how easily people dump all there butthurt on those closet to them.
I got a very fair share of anger/hate/misery projection when I was a kid, so I'm with you on that.

He says that he believes I will love him that way again.

This place proves that sometimes it happens, sometimes over many years. Only time can tell.

You do realize that in your post you are also stating and accepting that YOU get less?

Bigger - totally. I totally get less. He has been told I feel I am now settling - I wasn’t prepared to settle and now I feel I have. He knows this was a big thing for me I wouldn’t have ever settled. I am financially independent, have a good career and still don’t need a husband to look after me or the kids. I genuinely loved him. Life was hard with little kids and working full time etc. I thought it would get better. His focus on the negatives, combined with his ability to lie and blow problems Into bigger issues in his mind plus drinking and resentment caused him to think the grass was greener in the places he hadn’t had time to shit over.

He is working really hard. I doubt he will do this again. He is shocked by the trauma it has caused. He has and is working on a variety of issues. He had a variety of mini breakdowns last year as reality hit and he realised what he had done and the fact he isn’t the nice person he thought he was. He’d painted me as the bad guy. I didn’t accept blame from the minute I found out. I told him he was going to feel awful when reality struck and that he needed to make a decision immediately as I wasn’t staying in this situation. He’s Read books, watched videos,podcasts looked at websites etc. Found a series of bad counsellors. He seems to be far more aware of his flaws and poor characteristics. But he’s also a good liar so who knows!

However I’m not sure I’d bother with a new relationship if I wasn’t with him. I can’t really be bothered. If it didn’t work with him (when we had so much in common) I don’t think I want to do it again. We have fun, get on well, can talk for weeks on end, I’m never bored of him. I want our children to have stability and a family - that is important to me.

But yes I’ve lost so very many things. Words, pictures, meaning. Loss is my main issue (I knew it would be from the first month after finding out). Trust I’m fine with (worked on that lots over my life time). Self esteem is fine ( my integrity and honesty following this trauma has made me feel really good about myself and my capabilities). But loss - I’ve lost a lot and I doubt it will ever return. I have posted on here a few times about loss.

And that is in part why I don’t understand why he is now prepared to settle for how I feel about him. I don’t hold back - he knows how I feel . He used to hate arguing, now he says he’s okay with it. He’s no longer scared I’ll leave. He used to be scared to say exactly how he felt, now he says he feels far better when he talks to me and sometimes it helps him realise the thought is irrelevant.

However in a way I do get more. Aspects of our relationship are better than they were. But he didn’t need to do what he did for us to get there.

It’s not a great place to be.

Did he really think you didn't love him anymore or was that just a lie he was telling himself to justify his cheating?

Zebra25 I think he believed it. We were exceptionally busy. He has always had self esteem issues. He was told many times (never by me) that I could do better than him from our early days. He believed it too. I thought my honest words about how I felt was enough. It’s sad because friends and family can see how I felt about him. Now I sometimes can’t even look at him and I don’t look at pictures of him or us and I won’t wear a wedding ring. In my eyes it’s all meaningless now and it feels fake. He’s really upset by these aspects. I wouldn’t have got married, I did it for him.

I had my own issues surrounding worrying about things which I didn’t address - funnily they have resolved due to the trauma I can’t quite work out why or how but I worry far less now. It’s the only real gift I have been given from this. Excess trauma - breakdown- worrying gone.

losing family members lead to him wondering whether there is more to life this combined with disillusionment and perfectionism, Negative and critical self talk. Bundles of Shame. Not sharing how he was feeling. Using alcohol to numb.

I tell him his belief I didn’t love him was rubbish and an excuse to justify his poor choices and stop the cognitive dissonance but deep down, knowing him for all the years I have I think he is telling the truth. Which is sad really. He had counselling during this period and I think that took him down a worm hole - the counsellor was awful, I’ve seen written communication and it’s extremely inappropriate. He was also on some awful online forums. Plus husband used the counsellor for extra smoke up the arse and didn’t talk about his issues. He now recognises his need for external validation and talks about it.

The AP (assuming she is a real person - it may be a scam artist) was on a different continent - never met and never video called. She refused to video call - shy apparently . I’m pretty sure it’s a fake person, not sure if playing the long game for money. He’s a fool for not doing due diligence.

I get how the situation arose and I understand the chemicals that continue the high. Very attractive to someone drinking to hide how they feel.

Sometimes I have thought he deserves more than I’ll ever be able to give him now. Other times I think and so what, that’s what happens when you make poor decisions. It’s sad all round really and didn’t have to be this way.

I found all the messages - that’s how I know they never met or video called. Not one message or voice message had been deleted.

This has been a helpful thread for me. I am in a very similar situation and really struggling. So just wanted to chime in that you are not alone. My WH is doing all the right things, genuinely remorseful. I also do not think I will ever feel the same about him. And I’ve told him that. I’m not even comfortable with I love you’s at this point. What does that even mean to him when he said that the whole time he was in the affair?! We are working on things but I am not going to fake how I feel or force myself to have loving feelings. They just are not there. And my biggest issue now is my sense of loss. It angers me that he doesn’t have that. I’ve been loyal and faithful so he still has the marriage that he thought he had and I do not. And I know we can build a new one but the last twenty years have been important to me and those years are tainted by this. Of course this is just my perspective and I’m sure not everyone feels this way.
I also do not think I want to start over at this point in my life and feel like the negatives of divorce outweigh the positives. We also get along quite well and always have. But it is a major case of settling for me. Would I choose him again if we were not intertwined financially and with family? No I would not. I’m trying to practice radical acceptance. That this is where I am in life. Work on making my own happiness and the relationship you want. I’m really working toward that. It’s hard.

Salt is healing you said ‘I’ve been loyal and faithful so he still has the marriage that he thought he had and I do not’.

He doesn’t have the same marriage as he thought he had. You don’t love him like you did. He may even love you more than he once did, the grace you have shown may make you even more special in his eyes. But you don’t look at him the same. So he doesn’t have the same marriage he once had. If he thinks he does he needs to reassess.

That is true. I guess I meant in the sense that I have not had a relationship outside of the marriage. Yes now the marriage is different. You are right about that.
He is working on a lot of things that were becoming issues. His avoidance, irritability and inability to talk through disagreements in the past are no longer acceptable and he’s suddenly able to do better with all of those. Because he knows I will not tolerate it at all. It’s like a child that does not change or work on something until they have very serious consequences. It’s disappointing.

Yes my husband is working on talking when he’d prefer to let it fester in his head. He says it’s so much better when he talks about things. It’s odd because he talks all the time - he just overthinks so much and I never realised the extent of the overthinking and replaying over and over again. I just don’t do that. I find it fascinating. It’s just sad that he has thrown a grenade into our marriage rather than talking.

How are you Saltishealing - I’m at about 18 months now, what about you? One lucky thing is I don’t remember dates.

I am right at 19 months from the initial D day. I had major trickle truth the first four months though. So I don’t even keep track on when the exact date was. I’m also very bad with dates.
I haven’t worn my wedding rings since the last d day. It was like after that initial 6 months went by I’ve just had a slow trickle of loss of feelings for my WH. I am going to give it time though to see if that can come back.
I do think I’ve gotten my legs back under me so to speak but the anger and the full impact of what this is to me has really settled in. So I’m in a much deeper place of feeling than I was even at a year. I really was kind of in denial when I first found out and the first six months. It’s true that the brain can really only process so much at one time. I feel like I relate to your thought processes. Our WH sounds similar as well.

My WH justified his betrayal claiming he was never happy in the marriage from the beginning ( not a word to me for 20 yrs !) . His betrayal was online but the entire time. Does it bother you that the marriage was set on fire for such a frivolous interaction? I cannot make sense of it at all. Was it worth it ?

I hate the "I’ve been unhappy" excuse.

IMO I believe the cheater isn’t unhappy until the affair begins. Period.

I heard the old ‘Ive been unhappy’ line in the early days. He has since realised he was making himself unhappy and he wasn’t talking about it. Plus drinking affects your sleep and brain.

It also turned out he thought I should be able to read his mind. We had discussed this years ago but he still believed me not knowing what he was thinking meant I didn’t love him
He said something last week and then corrected himself saying you can’t read my mind.

The online lady(man/scam artist) seemed to just understand him. I am guessing if scamming is your full time job you have to be. If she was real then it’s easy to create a persona when not in the flesh and when conversation is via text as you can perfectly construct a dazzling response. I can see how it happened and I can see how he moved into fantasy land. I wouldn’t have done it but I am not him.

Am I cross he blew up the marriage for a possible scam artist. I was very angry. I thought he deserved to be alone. I am now more angry about the lack of foresight and sense of danger - a theme.

For anyone reading who is still in the first 12 months the anger has subsided and I was very very angry. I still have moments when I love him, he knows to appreciate that small moment as it does go again.

I am angry that his reckless and selfish decisions meant me and the children have been affected. I made decisions based on having a stable marriage and by being kept in the dark I couldn’t make accurate decisions. He was so wrapped up in his fantasy world while I made several life changing decisions. The discovery led to a breakdown and I had to work through it. His poor choices could have left me with no income and no marriage and the children (who the counsellor said would just want him to be happy) could have had their life altered significantly. All so he could have his Romeo and Juliet moment.

My strength meant I pulled through and yet again did what I needed to do. I’ve had sexual assaults and a violent boyfriend previously - I thought I was safe now but nope I wasn’t. I was on my knees for a few months before I found out as he acted weird and around 10 months after. That has possibly helped my self esteem too. My resilience last year was unbelievable looking back.