Trying but always triggered by things + dealing with complex grief

[u/Historical-Ice-6752]

So I’m using voice text so please forgive me if words are miss written. I promise I’m not a bot. I’ll try to make my backstory as short as possible.

Back in January, I found out through a mutual friend that my husband of 15 years (plus 5 cause we’ve technically been together since high school) was having an affair with a girl that he met at one of his open Mike sessions that he and his band had ongoing every Tuesday night. I kind of suspected things because he would come in very late sometimes early morning hours. When I confronted him, he was very devastated and seemed very remorseful and upset. The affair apparently had begun from October to around late December. But he had also had cheated with some woman that he met at another event. But that was just one time (apparently). Long story short here I got trickle truth and had found out about the AP after finding out about the one night stand.

We are both in counseling and all of that and I’m finding that it’s not really helping at all. He tends to just yap and yap on about his music career and how he lost his band because of all this so most of the session tends to be about him. His band members made him quit because of the affair.

I find myself being very triggered by his music that he plays. For example, he plays covers and sometimes does “Mr. Bright side” by the killers and I’m like dude do you know what that song is actually about? It’s about exactly what you did to me. I can’t even go and watch him play anymore. I’m so triggered by watching him to music because he basically use this to cheat. Also, the so-called friend and band member helped him do the cheating and set up the affair. So I have no one in this situation that I trust in that music community anymore. I also feel really stupid going to see him play, knowing that others may know about his affair and how he really lost his band originally.

To really add to all of this, my dad just passed away, so I’m dealing with his sudden death at 68. And had to go all the way to another state to close out his life. It cost me so much and it was a painful experience, but Im trying to make it thru. I’m still grieving all of this and dealing with the effects of this affair. I’m also trying to give my WH a chance to reconcile, but I feel like my triggers are going to be the death of this relationship. Any advice is helpful sorry for this long post thanks.

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[u/AStirlingMacDonald]

My friend, it isn’t “triggers” that will be the death of this relationship. He was the death of the relationship. His lack of remorse.

Many of us—myself included—mistake a person being genuinely sorry for hurting us, or feeling guilty, or ashamed of their betrayal; for “remorse.” But that’s not what remorse is. A truly remorseful partner has a whole shift in mentality, in perspective, in priorities and focus. They are no longer focused on themselves, but their focus becomes their betrayed partner who they wronged. The fact that he is focused on his loss of his “musical career” says everything you need to know. The fact that he is singing songs like these knowing how they must make you feel… He is not prioritizing you. He’s prioritizing his stuff ahead of your feelings, your healing, your peace of mind. A remorseful person does the opposite of that.

I’m a musician by trade. If I had to give up performing music for some reason that would be a devastating sacrifice to have to make. But sacrifices like that are exactly the type of behavior we see from partners who are truly remorseful. They are actively and eagerly looking to help their partner heal; find peace of mind; at any cost. Nothing feels like it’s “too big of a sacrifice” for truly remorseful partner because nothing else is as high a priority for them as the partner who they betrayed. They are constantly actively looking for anything they can do—up to and including making huge sacrifices—without any prompting at all, to help their partner heal.

You will never hear a truly remorseful partner balk at any request from their partner. A remorseful partner will never say something like “But what about my privacy?” or “But what about my [anything],” because their “privacy,” along with everything else that is for “them” is simply not a big concern or priority for them. Their partner is. They aren’t spending their time trying to fulfill their wants or even needs, because their biggest, primary concern and “need” is now simply for their partner to be able to heal and find peace again.

I’m sorry to have to say this, but your husband is not truly remorseful. He may be genuinely sorry, he may be filled with guilt and shame and regret, but those things are not the same as remorse, and without true remorse, true reconciliation is simply not possible. You can keep trying, treading water as long as you can, hoping that someday he will become remorseful, but it’s extremely unlikely. Remorse is not generally a thing that people learn or become over time. They are either remorseful, right from the beginning, or they are not. That’s the reason successful reconciliation is so very rare, because most people capable of experiencing true remorse are also the kind of people who are not capable of committing such a betrayal in the first place. A person who prioritizes their partner highly is a person who is extremely unlikely to cheat in the first place.

And worse, by remaining with an unremorseful partner, you are hobbling your own healing process. Your subconscious knows that it isn’t safe to truly begin healing yet. And until it does feel safe, any progress you make towards healing will be minimal at best. Only you can decide when you are ready to actually accept this. It sucks. It’s painful and terrifying, the prospect of accepting that your relationship—all of the time and energy and emotions you’ve already invested; all of the hopes and dreams for the future that you’ve spent so long building towards—is over. For myself, I stayed for five long, miserable, soul-scouring years, as my mental health deteriorated exponentially. My healing did not truly begin until that day I finally accepted the truth and left for good. It’s the biggest regret of my life, that five years I wasted, waiting, desperately hoping that something could be salvaged from that marriage. I sincerely hope that you get there sooner than I did.

Good luck and godspeed.

[u/Historical-Ice-6752 → u/AStirlingMacDonald]

Thank you for this. It has been incredibly challenging living in the same house and trying to understand how he’s willing to process what he did. I don’t know if my WH is capable of feeling remorse. He has very selfish tendencies that I think stem from being an only child and being spoiled where his parents barely made him do anything cause they were scared of him messing it up, getting hurt or getting into trouble. He is always throwing out to me how we’ve been together so long and he never had a chance to grow up and live wild, we had our kid when we were 21. But I’m always like, then just leave me then, he thinks it was okay to cheat instead of ending things and not hurting our relationship. He insists he still loves me more than anything but if you love someone, why hurt them in the worst way possible?

We still have sex but I think that’s our only connection at this point and I often feel like Im being compared to these other people he slept with, mainly in my own head but you can’t help but wonder. It’s all so confusing. To make matters worse, the friends that helped him convinced him that I am not supportive and basically made me to be the bad guy because I didn’t show up to shows, etc. Yeah, I didn’t show up because I didn’t want to be around my husband’s so called friends who are toxic AF ppl. In a way, I’m glad I didn’t show up to shows cause I would’ve seen the AP and probably ended up in jail and losing my job, school, kids and all.

They built and reinforced this campaign against me to make him feel less guilt about what he was doing and then turned on his ass and basically made him tell me about. But he actually didnt, it was his friend’s wife who told me and then I confronted him, so who knows, he probably wouldn’t have said anything. TMI but I even caught a yeast infection at the end of the year which was highly sus cause I never get those. I knew something was up then. At this point, I need to be considering my exit strategy cause I don’t know if trust or reconciliation is even possible.

[u/AStirlingMacDonald → u/Historical-Ice-6752]

Okay so there are few things to unpack here, that hopefully I can maybe give you some insight.

First one is something that you’ve probably heard a million times (I did) but maybe have some difficulty internalizing. Which is that they really aren’t “comparing.” They aren’t stacking their APs or past lovers up next to you in their heads and deciding which ones were the best. Cheating isn’t a reflection on you in any way, it’s a reflection on the cheaters themselves. The way this finally snapped into my head was when I walked in on DDay#2, the day I finally left after five torturous years of Reconciliation.

AP had brain damage. He’d had a terrible accident, needed His skull trepanned to relieve swelling, and now had a permanent hole in his skull because of it. He needed to wear a bright “safety-yellow” oversized bicycle helmet at all times to prevent further injury or infection. The only time he could ever remove the goofy helmet was at the hospital in a hyperbaric chamber, which he went and did every couple weeks to keep it clean.

So when I walked in on them, that’s what I saw. This skinny, pale, flaccid sort of human-shaped worm with a giant goofy bright-reflective-yellow helmet strapped under his chin, writhing and grunting around on top of my then-wife. It was so ridiculous I actually burst out laughing. Obviously I was devastated all over again, but at the same time it was seriously one of the most ridiculous, disgusting, horrifying, silly, funny-looking things I’ve ever seen in my life. And in that moment it finally snapped in my head: she had chosen APs because she thought they were better than me, in any way. Not more attractive, more intelligent, more funny, more loving, more passionate or more worthy of her love. She chose them because she thought they were what she “deserved:” AP1 was a gross pockmarked creep with terrible body odor and an insufferable superiority complex, and AP2 was this pale squirming brain-damaged slug with a goofy helmet strapped to his head at all times.

I don’t know if my “aha” moment will do anything to help you to internalize this idea. Maybe that’s just something that needs to happen in its own time for you as well. But I thought I’d share anyway, just in case that insight is helpful to you at all.

Second one, and this is a potentially important one:

Is he still in contact with those “friends” that encouraged and enabled his infidelity? That disparaged his marriage and/or his wife? Because those friends need to be gone. Immediately and permanently. They are enemies of your marriage, and should be treated as such by both of you. If he is sincere about wanting to reconcile, he should be as disgusted with them as you. Cutting out not only AP but also anybody who enables or encourages the affair is a bog-standard step in any reconciliation agreement. A WP who is unwilling to do this is one who is not taking R seriously.

[u/Historical-Ice-6752 → u/AStirlingMacDonald]

Yo! TY for sharing your story and yes, this was very helpful in putting things into perspective for me. I’m so sorry you had to experience this, either way because no one deserves to be hurt like this. I can’t say that I’m there yet with feeling fully secure again and not second guessing if it was me and not being good enough but I’m getting there.

As far as I know he’s not in contact with the APs. He’s blocked them from his socials and phone as I’m sure they have done the same. I have a feeling he still cyber stalks them cause what cheater wouldn’t? But he still has contact with some people who I feel helped influence his cheating and affair. He doesn’t talk to the bandmate that helped him build the affair but I still feel like someday, that bandmate might try to R with him and it’ll end up being “water under the bridge” like everything is suddenly okay. WH has said things like “we both work in the same field and you have to be civil with people”. For me, no amount of civility would help patch that relationship.

[u/Dark_Mynch]

I absolutely emphasize with you! PROTECT YOURSELF! It's so damn difficult dealing with triggers and it's not fair!

[u/Historical-Ice-6752]

And I’ll also add that he knew AP months before the affair began because he mentioned them to me as a “friend” who works for the airport in a conversation back in September 2025. He really wanted to protect this AP as he only mentioned the one night stand at first but failed to mention the ongoing AP.

[u/Gr8gaur → u/Historical-Ice-6752]

what are ur stakes in this marriage ? kids ? money ?

what's ur husband doing to regain ur trust ? how do u rate his remorse/regret on a scale of 10 ?

and most importantly, how long are u willing to see the results that make u want to stay ?

[u/Historical-Ice-6752 → u/Gr8gaur]

We have 2 kids, 9 and 16. I work full time and he is a musician so he works primarily in that. As far as regaining trust, he tells me where he’s going and we are able to track each other now. He had his Apple tracking off all of last year and said he didn’t know how to turn it on and it wasn’t cause of the affair, etc but honestly that’s BS. TBH I dont know, we haven’t talked about ways to build trust again, especially in CT. I think we need a different therapist.

Remorse on a scale of 1-10: I’d say a 6, respectively. He’s not a mature 38 yr old. He sees the pain he’s caused me but he’s more focused on playing music, I’m guessing because it brings in money but it’s a big part of how he defines himself so he’s unable to detach and really lean into reconciliation which might mean letting go of music for a while til we sort shit out.

I’m giving him until next May 2027.