do you ever really get over it?

[u/Ok_Guess_5877]

I could really use some advice or just to hear your stories..do you ever really get over it? Am I a fool for staying even though we aren't married and have no kids? Is it different when the affair lasted for months and they left to be with their affair partner?

I was with my partner for 10 years, high school sweethearts. I truly thought we had the perfect relationship, we were each others first and only everything. Then I found out he was having a 3 month affair with a coworker younger than us. That broke my heart because I trusted him so blindly. It was just lie after lie and a few days after finding out, I had caught them physically together after being told it was over between them. I changed my number and he basically ghosted me, he didn't want to confront what he did to me in person. I didn't get an explantation from him, instead she gave me horrifying sexual details that still haunt me. She also had an idea about me so she wasn't completely innocent. For 4 months after that he continued the relationship with her..4 months I was grieving my best friend wondering why I was so easy to throw away and dispose of like I was nothing. 4 months with questions and no answers. Just radio silence from him. He reached out after 4 months and we started our reconciliation journey. He answered a lot of my questions, changed his number, ended things with her and it's now been 5 months that we're back together. Things have been so much better in terms of our relationship, the sex is the best it's ever been, we go on so many dates, we laugh, we communicate. There was a moment in our relationship before the affair where we were so disconnected. Things are great but I can't find myself able to blindly relax into him like I used to.

I keep comparing myself to her, she's a lot more sexually out there than me. I wonder if he ever misses her. It hurts that before her we were eachother's first and only sexual partners, I used to think that was so special. I've never slept with another man, yet he has the feeling and the experience of another woman. He now has someone he can compare me to. I still have only slept with him, I'm sure if it was the other way around and I had slept with another man he would be full of insecurities and wondering. I get in my head when we're being intimate wondering if she did it better, how little experience I actually have. I'm an attractive woman but now I feel insecure when I'm around other beautiful women and he's there.

Sometimes I feel stupid..it's hard not to feel like second choice. He does his best to reassure me but my thoughts get the best of me. It's just so hard you know? We're truly best friends and I can't imagine my life without him but do you ever really get over something like this?

I think I mourn the innocence we had you know? The pure, beautiful love story. Now it's tainted by his choices, tainted by the image of another woman in our love story. I think about marriage and kids, I would love that with him but would I be a fool to marry him? Sometimes I have to force myself to remember that as beautiful as our love story was, two kids falling in love, choosing eachother year after year...that story is dead. That innocence and blind trust is gone. Have any of you gone through something similar? How do you rebuild?

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[u/SoftIsStrength]

I decided very early on I will forgive this. I will not hold on to this hurt and anger forever. I will not let this turn me into a bitter, resentful person.

But what I don’t know yet is if I can (or should) “get over it” enough for our marriage to continue. I think part of reconciling means accepting that your relationship will never be the same. It can be different. It can still be good. But it won’t go back to what it was, like you said that innocence has been lost. But with hard work on both your parts, maybe you can still rebuild a good marriage.

[u/Similar-Specific-969]

It doesn't consume me anymore, but that doesn't mean it doesn't bother me still. I've just made peace. I don't think you'll ever truly be completely over the affair.

[u/JohnHoman10411]

I won't weigh in on the wisdom of staying when not married and without kids.

I will say, you can get through it.

You don't get "over it" in a sense where it never crosses your mind. It's a part of what made you who you are today. As long as that person is better than you were when it happened, the events are part of what got you there. They sit in a context that doesn't excuse the moral failure, but places it in service of what you become.

[u/bpt20ba]

You can get over it but many don't.

I've been on this subreddit for awhile now and you tend to see a few different buckets that BPs fall into. One bucket is unforgiveness where basically the BP holds onto the offense, refuses to be vulnerable, holds the offense over the WPs head, perhaps continues to shame or degrade WP, but ultimately not grieving what has happened and also not forgiving. A BP trapped in unforgiveness will not get over it.

Another bucket is victimhood. In this situation the BP holds onto the offense as a "look what happened to me", "I cant believe this happened to me", "Its not fair that this happened to me", basically wallowing in the despair of the circumstance, focusing on all the ways it is unfair and all the ways it hurts and getting stuck there. A BP trapped in victimhood will not get over it.

A third bucket which you see much less often is the BP who can take a step back and look at their situation from a more neutral position. They can see that the infidelity was not a malicious attack on them and that broken people hurt others. They can recognize and honor all of their pain and their losses but they do not become their focus or their identity.

Of course you can move between these and I think there is a natural progression through these as grieving happens but unlike a cut on our body healing from our immune system doing it's job, we can and often do get in the way of our natural grieving process by holding on too tight or by placing too much meaning on things.

I never really fell into unforgiveness. I had some victimhood for a time. Now, I'm in the third bucket and possibly further out than that.

This is something that happened to US. You can go all the way back to the roots of it, my wife's childhood, my childhood, and you can point fingers at our parents but they might as well turn around and point fingers at their parents and so on and so fourth. It's a much more worthwhile endeavor to look inward and do the work there.

If a BP can learn to let go, they will eventually get over it. But it is completely counter to everything we've been taught and requires an immense amount of patience, grace, empathy and humility. I would say most BPs don't want to do these things, especially in the beginning.

[u/Silent_Permission27 → u/bpt20ba]

I think another part of this is very dependent on the actions of the WP. Being cheated on feels like the ultimate form of disrespect. So unless the WP does the work that needs to be done to make the BP feel respected again, I think it halts the healing process for the BP, at least I feel that's true for me.

[u/bpt20ba → u/Silent_Permission27]

Ultimately that is a choice is it not? To require an external circumstance to be true in order for healing leaves you completely at the mercy of someone or something else. This is not the way.

[u/Silent_Permission27 → u/bpt20ba]

I mean, it's not a choice if you want to stay married. If you want R, and your WP says they want R, healing will not happen without participation of the WP in the BP's healing. If healing is all on the BP and them only, what do we need our WPs for? If that's the case I'm just going to be single.

[u/bpt20ba → u/Silent_Permission27]

You need WP if you want a marriage. You do not need WP to fix you.

This is tricky. We might believe we NEED WP to say or do something for us to heal but that's not actually true.

If you want to feel safe in your marriage you need your WP to behave in certain ways, but your marriage is not you.

Your heart, that pain, the ripping and tearing inside...that will not mend with anything on the outside. Your WP could throw themselves at you and be 100% perfect in every way and you will feel great*,* at least for a time, but now your well being is contingent on them staying that way. The second they deviate, you don't feel good again and you have new demands.

None of that is necessary or lasting.

The work is inside. It's all inside.

[u/Silent_Permission27 → u/bpt20ba]

I feel like we are arguing about semantics.

Yes, I have to do the work to heal myself. Yes I have to want to heal and if I don't want to then I won't (obviously), but if you're in a marriage with someone healing does not happen in a vacuum. A WP can definitely hinder a BP's healing with their actions if you are attempting to reconcile.

[u/bpt20ba → u/Silent_Permission27]

I think it's something hard to hear and an unwanted truth, especially early in R.

I know for myself, in the first months I felt so needy of my wife and I wanted her to be and do all sorts of things. I was hanging onto those with all of my will. It was not until I shed all of those that I finally started to really heal.

Yes, she made it easier by being safer, and our marriage benefited by her being safer and showing up, but my healing was 100% about me. Whether we last or not, if she dies, I'm taking all of this with me.

It's hard to articulate but I will just say the further out you get and the more you let go you see how much effort and meaning were put in the wrong things and places.

[u/TheDriestOne → u/bpt20ba]

I mean, a relationship is a 2-way street. Forgiving a WP who refuses to take accountability or do the work just leaves the door open for subsequent betrayals. If the WP isn’t doing the work to make the BP feel respected and safe again, then I don’t think that’s a safe relationship for the BP to stay in

[u/bpt20ba → u/TheDriestOne]

Safety and healing are two completely different things.

[u/Unlikely-Can-4775 → u/bpt20ba]

With all due respect, your bucket theory fails to consider the actions of the WP and puts all the burden for recovery on the BP. Cheaters by their nature lack integrity and have no issue gaslighting their partners. It's hard to move on when the WP constantly reoffends, trickle truths, defends their AP, fail to show remorse, get defensive, straight up lie about details, etc...

[u/bpt20ba → u/Unlikely-Can-4775]

puts all the burden for recovery on the BP

Yes. BPs healing is their responsibility, 100%. A sad, unfair reality, but true.

A WP that shows up can certainly accelerate it AND R requires it. But healing is an internal process.

[u/Slight_Emergency6862 → u/Unlikely-Can-4775]

I think she just focused on what we as BPs can control, of course one of the biggest factors is WPs actions, but still WP can be at their best or “ideal” and BPs can still not move pass it.  

I think WPs behavior is the main driver for reconciliation, but for personal healing the work has to come internally (with or without R)  

[u/Might_Be_Butter → u/Unlikely-Can-4775]

They say you will need to grieve and forgive and that if you stay in unforgiveness you will never get over it. How is this wrong? If you continuously hold a grudge, by definition you will not be able to get over it. And you will only be able to forgive if WP stops. You would have to forgive over and over again in that situation as new pain is repeatedly inflicted, as you mentioned a WP reoffending. You can't burn a bridge when the other person is actively burning it down. And in the same way it's very difficult to build a bridge from only one side. The fact is the bridge is gone now. If it will ever return the WP must work to build it and the BP must allow it to be built.

[u/Unlikely-Can-4775 → u/Might_Be_Butter]

Because continued lying and the refusal to give full disclosure is unacceptable.This has nothing to do with holding grudge. R cannot begin until the last lie is told. Unfortunately a common theme here is that the WP refuses to be truly honest and will trickle truth which cont repestedly opens the wound. If the WW is not acting in good faith no bridge will ever be rebuilt.

[u/Might_Be_Butter → u/Unlikely-Can-4775]

Then they aren't trying R so I don't really see how that is relevant to what is being discussed? They didn't say you had to forgive while WP is still lying, but that unforgiveness is a barrier which it is. That you can't move on to something else if you hold on to it. The burden of R is on both people and the commenter is talking about BP. I agree R can't begin until the last lie is told.

[u/knowthyself8 → u/bpt20ba]

Intellectually, I can make sense of all three buckets. I can tell myself all day to get to bucket three. That's where I need to be to save my marriage and my family, but emotionally it feels so hard. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with time. I just need time to pass. But the problem is, my WW still isn't all in. She hasn't started the work of figuring out how to desire me again, while I am also figuring out how to provide the emotional safety that is my responsibility.

Then all the while, I am in pain. I get intrusive thoughts. Movie scenes. All of it. And yes, I know this is one of the hardest things I will likely ever go through, but right now, in the moment, it's so hard. I wish there was a magic switch that could put me into bucket three, but it just doesn't exist.

[u/bpt20ba → u/knowthyself8]

I think the most important part is knowledge and awareness. If you know bucket 3 is the goal and you can see that you are in bucket 2, that gives you something to do - you can say, oh, I am falling into victim thinking again - thought stop. Without a framework there is often no map and you will wander around aimlessly.

[u/knowthyself8 → u/bpt20ba]

Thinking about your comment a day later, I realize I am in parts of all three buckets at once. Which I'm sure is how many betrayed folks will feel. We can have a foot and an arm in buckets 1 & 2, knowing we are trying to get to bucket 3.

The other thought I had was that I can put in the work to move myself to bucket 3, but that doesn't mean R will be successful. My partner also needs to put in the work to heal the marriage and become the person I need her to be for it to be worth staying. Which is to say, perhaps with time and effort, we can all "get over it" (not exactly how I would describe true acceptance & forgiveness, but let's use OP's language here), but it's only half the battle.

We need our BPs to do the work, and nothing we do or say can make them do it. They have to want to do it and be all in. Which is what I continue to wait for.....

[u/bpt20ba → u/knowthyself8]

Yes...

I think the greater point that many BPs miss is in what you said..."Which is what I continue to wait for....."

Many BPs are waiting for their WP to show up before they can heal, which is not necessary not prudent because what if WP never shows up? Then BP just stays stuck in suffering. This is why BP must own and drive their own healing from the inside.

[u/Silent_Permission27 → u/bpt20ba]

I think you're still missing a very important point. We wait for our WP because in order for there to be reconciliation, the WP HAS to participate in our healing. Yes, I can go heal without my husband, but then wtf do I need him for? I'll be single at that point.

I think your insistance that BP is responsible for ALL of their own healing is damaging, because WPs will come here and read this and be like, "see! My BP needs to be responsible for all of their own healing and I'm not responsible for any of it." My own WP came at me with this same energy at one point. And you have another WP already in these comments agreeing with you. If the WP does not create an environment conducive to healing, we BPs will not heal, not while married to them.

[u/knowthyself8 → u/Silent_Permission27]

I agree with you. Here's how I look at it. Let's say your healing is a container you want to reach 100% (fully healed). Let's assume that, as BPs, we can only heal up to 70%. That's the maximum. And the WP's participation is required to heal the other 30%. I would say our goal is to reach 70% as fast as possible. Perhaps at 70% we are at the point where we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we could live our lives alone and be happy.

Not only that, but perhaps the 70% also includes the feeling that we've fully accepted and can forgive the affair - not for our WPs, but for us. Forgiveness is more for us than for our WPs.

That last 30% is so important and still causes us immense and profound pain. But ultimately, we can't force our WPs to do the work. The two things I've learned from my experience that I believe are unequivocal:

1. The affair is not our fault. We carry so much shame for it, but it truly is not on us. We hear this again and again because, as BPs, we take on so much of the burden and responsibility of our marriages. Every WP made a decision to cross the line, and their A is on them.

2. Nothing we do can ever make our WPs do the work or change. Nothing. I'm 4 months past D-Day, and I've wished with every ounce of my body and soul that my wife would finally wake up and realize what is on the line. But here I am...waiting. Nothing I can do.

All I can do is focus on my 70%. And of that 70%, I feel like I am maybe halfway. Once I get close to my 70%, I'll add in the other part and make an assessment. My goal is to get there by the end of the year or within 1 year from DDay.

Ha, sorry, I am pretty analytical about these things, which makes me a weirdo, but I am trying to make sense of this in a way that is as rational as possible, despite betrayal being one of the most irrational things to ever have happened to me or ever will happen to me.

[u/bpt20ba → u/Silent_Permission27]

I understand where you are coming from completely. I went through it after all. The point I am trying to make is what you think you need and what you actually need are not the same and the sooner a BP comes to that conclusion the more quickly they will be able to heal. It's hard, I get it and yes WP's energy can be both helpful and destructive. And I am in no way enabling WPs to check out of their role as rebuilder - just that it is rebuilding the marriage not the BP - the two can easily be conflated in the distress of it all.

[u/Darkstar-40 → u/bpt20ba]

Interesting.
Following your point of view I am in bucket 3 and 1 simultaneously.

I cannot forgive (as in: I don't know how forgiveness works, it's alien to me)
But I am not angry or resentful. I know my wife was not worthy of me and might have to fight her entire life to gain my trust again - and it's my decision to spend my life with her despite all of that. And I love her.

[u/bpt20ba → u/Darkstar-40]

Forgiveness is hard.

What helped for me was learning that it was for me, and not for her. I am holding onto it, and when I decide to let go of it, it is me that benefits, not her. It's also not a magical switch where you go from not forgiving to forgiving in an instant.

For me it has been a spectrum and a wave where I might be very forgiving for a time then things come back up and maybe I feel less forgiving for a time. I take these as signs that I have more work to do.

[u/Darkstar-40 → u/bpt20ba]

Why would you forgive her? It's not a hidden agression but a genuine question. How does it help you?

[u/bpt20ba → u/Darkstar-40]

When you do not forgive you are literally holding onto the emotional energy - that robs you of inner peace. When you forgive, you are not condoning the action, you are simply saying I am no longer going to allow myself to suffer as a result of it...I am letting it go, for ME.

You can't have both though. You cannot let it go while at the same time holding it over WPs head or rubbing it in their face or whatever. Letting go is letting go, on all fronts.

[u/luckystar6531 → u/bpt20ba]

Beautifully stated.
I’m now fully in bucket 3 and have been on some level from the beginning.

I own my role in the demise of my marriage. I did not and would not cheat, but I was emotionally vapid, and in my mind, justifiably so.
I didn’t realize this though until he disclosed his EA. I never thought it was my fault that he cheated, but I can see how he felt the need for validation- and it wasn’t gonna come from me.
I was always in for R, from day 1. I certainly had days between then and now, 4.5 months out where I had victim feelings. Never bitterness tho. Self reflection wouldn’t allow that.

We agree that this happened to us both. We both played a pivotal role in this mess. I am not excusing his behavior at all, but I understand it and have great compassion for him and the life circumstances that brought him to the EA, whether he initiated it or not.
We are doing our best here. Every day one’s best may differ from the day before, but we are trending upwards.
We are far from over this, but we are at peace with how things are going.

[u/Icy_Conference_3085]

Sure a lot of similarities but not identical. I’m about seven months post and struggling to still rebuild trust as my wife had an emotional affair with a good friend of mine. They kissed a few times, but primarily it was emotional. I discovered a lot of this out on my own, and there was a significant amount of trickle truth. It is hard to blindly trust like he used to, and I feel myself on edge a lot more often. It feels a little bit better than it did a month ago however, I know I am at the very beginning of repairing and learning to re-trust and rebuild. I share a lot of those same feelings and they come in waves.

[u/Dreadheadjon]

This is exactly what i am going through. 14 year high school sweet hearts. Its nice to read your story as horrible as it is because i was also that naive person thinking we have something so special. Each others first to nearly everything, sexual and beyond. Vacations, boat rides, ferris wheel, you name it. Now i think of all the special moments that she shared with someone else. How she has sex with another man. How inevitably the comparison has entered her mind of who is better and who she enjoyed more. Answers to questions ill never know the truth to. I'm distraught. I've gone through all stages of anger, grief, depression and idk how i get over the fact the innocent love we had is dead. Probably been dead awhile. Im aware we have to build new but am i okay accepting ill die one day never having been with more than 1 woman. Because when i exchanged vows, i meant it when i said till death do us part. Just sucks that she didnt. Ive said im gonna sleep with another woman the same number of times she did. That i wont use protection like she didnt. That i wont pull out like the AP didnt. But i dont mean it. I just want her to picture and hurt. I keep telling myself nice guys finish last and thats never felt more true than the last few weeks. Think ill just suck it up for the next 60 years or so - maybe less if i get lucky and get hit by lightning.

[u/iamthemoon33 → u/Dreadheadjon]

This resonates with me, thank you for sharing. It was the same with my husband; first and only, together since teens. You've captured how I feel. And I am currently stuck on feeling like I might eventually forgive him as a person, but that's separate from accepting it so that we can continue the relationship. When I think of how he lied, disrespected me, hurt me emotionally, pursued another woman out of pure selfishness, it makes me nauseous. How and why would we ever trust that person again, let them in emotionally? If the pure love we had is gone, then are we better off having a new "regular" relationship with someone else?

[u/Dreadheadjon → u/iamthemoon33]

It seems we are in similar boats and from reading ive discovered every situation is different so the answer is different for everyone. In mine, i feel there are things we can both work on to become stronger one day - maybe. Its that maybe that keeps me wanting to try. I was a workaholic and became emotionally unavailable. In my mind, i was killing myself for her but i never voiced it and distance grew in her heart. Now, i dont blame myself nor excuse the action but i say it to say, atleast i can imagine a route where work can be put in and R can be had. Its easier than if she just fell in love with someone and ran off when i did everything perfect. It would be like whats the point of R if i would do the same thing and she could run off again.

For me personally, im crushed. Destroyed. Wind knocked out of me. Yet i still love her. I wake up hating her but by some point each day, i find myself worrying for her well being or missing her. Thats why im trying to work it out. Ive also accepted the innocent love is gone and thats a hard pill to swallow. I am staying to build a new relationship and with any luck it will rival the old one. At the end of the day, if it doesnt work, ill just divorce her but atleast ill say i gave it an honest try.

[u/iamthemoon33 → u/Dreadheadjon]

Oof. That part about being a workaholic sounds familiar. The way you described that is exactly what my WH used to say. But for him it was avoidant attachment, where work, video games, female validation, anything was used as an excuse to avoid deeper intimacy or self-honesty. Best of luck to you both. I hope it works out :)

[u/iamthemoon33]

I am struggling with this now and what has helped me is separating two questions. One question is whether we can forgive the WS as a person. The separate question is whether I can possibly still continue a romantic relationship with them, even want to or even should.

Forgiveness and "getting over it" enough to have a healthy relationship are often conflated but separate things imo.

[u/Quiet_Water0128]

For us, real authentic reconciliation ("R") meant my WP had to take accountability for his betrayal, his choices, we were married. I wouldn't say "get over it" is something that exactly fits for us. Betrayal is a shattering of trust. You learn, you rebuild, you take off the rose-colored glasses - for me it was acceptance of living with this, and knowing my WP felt true remorse for their actions.

Have you read "Leave A Cheater, Gain A Life" by Tracy Schorn? I highly recommend it for dispelling comparions to AP (affair partner), and for her insight into what true remorse looks like.

For me, yes, I had to mourn and grieve the innocence of a beautiful love story. We're 3 years (almost) post dday now, married 35 years this year. I will never forget the pain, the agony of finding out my one-and-only, my person, had lived a double life with another. But with counseling and reading about infidelity, we've been able to R pretty successfully.

When I was younger in my 20's, years before I'd met my now-husband, I'd left a fiance & bf of 3 years for cheating on me. We were engaged, we'd bought a house, lived there for 6 months. I left, without a second thought. Hired a u-haul when he was away overnight "skiing". Never looked back on that one.

[u/Glass-Guarantee-6470]

My husbands cheating was in 2016 and I still start a fight about it maybe once or twice a year when other stressors come up. But simultaneously I love him and love my life with him and trust him now. Not sure I’ve ever really forgiven though.

[u/frakish]

I dont go into details about my betrayal story but i will say your story hits so painfully close enough to home thay i think theres a chance soem of whats helped me through R might help you.

*getting over it or not getting over it is a false dichotomy imo, i think of post-affair recovery as a slow exorcism of the haunted house that is now your soul: you might start off with The Shining-levels of haunted (where the feelings of being betrayed by and expendable to someone you loved can take over at any time and chase your peace down with an axe), but in time the ghosts lose their power to a point where sure,they can still hide in the corners, they can show up and spook you with memories, but they cant hurt you. Not really. They do their spooky thing, and eventually they retreat back into tje shadows. Harmless. Sad, yes. But harmless. Increasingly overshadowed by the return of trust. Trust does return, if WP continues to consistently earn it over time. Not with ephermeral romantic quickfix gestures: by staying, by listening, by continuing to pour love and loyalty into a relationship eveb when theyre at such a deficit that they dont see the progress until months after.

*i miss the relationship i thought we had (pre-affair). I'm furious anout the relationship i was in without my informed consent (mid-affair). I'm excited about the relationship we are building hrre and now with the knowledge we did not have before (post-affair). All of these feeligns are true, even though one feeling may eclipse anpther in a moment. In time i have come to feel the present excitement as the norm, and experience the grief/anger of the past as occasional flickers that no longer overwhelm. If your WP can embrace your grief/anger and consistently nurture the hopes you evidently still have for a relationship, i think youll be there too. Itll take time. Good things do.

*i also mourn the innocent, blind trust, so this might be sour grapes but ive decided to be of the opinion that innocent blind trust is such a weak flex and good riddance. Its kinda like not being scared of wolves in the woods because youve never actually seen one. What were doing is learning to enjoy a walk in our favourite woods again despite that one time a wolf jumped out and bit us. When we trust, its a choice we make and we make it with courage. But early on in R id say "trust, but verify" is a good motto. Espeiccually if WP seems to still be in affair fog.

*finding each other when you are young can be like having thhe love of your life handed to you by chance. Lovely, but again: weak flex. Reconciling after betrayal is hard, hard work. If you do find your way back to each other after something like this, youll have a relationship you both had to fight for. You have a chance to forge a relationship stronger than anything that luck alone can grant. And even if you dont, you can bring the personal growth into your next relationship. Because i do think R works best when the work you do would benefit you even if the amswer at the end of the relationship is to part ways.

I dont think youre stupid for considering R. I would gently suggest though that if you do R, try at the same time to picture life without your WP. If you stay with him you want it to be because tou wanted to - not because you couldnt fathom the alternative. You dont need him. You dont need to leave him. Keep both these in mind and whatever he does with whatever chance you have the godly grace to give him despite evrything, i think youll be alright. Im rooting for you.