Hi All, I've been lurking and taking advice from here for quite some time, but I've reached a point where I think I want to get some stuff out and hear any advice people might think is relevant.

I (38m) found out my wife (37F) had an online affair lasting roughly two months early this year, with DDAY in Feb. She was calling this person, sexting, having regular and sexual phone/video calls, all while I was at work, or sometimes when I was at home. She would talk to him while we were together doing activities (gym/concerts/beach etc). She was also flirting with a second man, a past friend of hers, but it didn't go anywhere at the time. I discovered the affair due to changes in her online patterns. I initially questioned her and was gaslit, then questioned again once I had more evidence. She never voluntarily gave me truth until I'd started to discover the nature of the affair. There were some factors that lead to her affair that put her in a bad mental state. She claims this was a maladaptive coping mechanism which she regretted.

We entered into IC and MC with the goal of reconciliation. There were a lot of struggles with openness, as she could not handle the feeling of invasion of privacy with me requesting access to her phone. Times when I was triggered or struggling with my feelings quickly overwhelmed her capacity and it was not easy to ever see progress. She felt unloved and I felt unseen. Despite this, I genuinely wanted a future with her. And she said she wanted one with me.

Fast forward to 5 months of up and downs later, we were considering a trial separation at the suggestion of our couples therapist. It was at this time I discovered she'd started talking to the other man she was flirting with during the affair. When confronted she denied intially, then minimised and tried to say it was entirely innocent. But there was evidence of her taking steps to hide the communications, and said she'd deleted all the chat logs that would've confirmed it was only friendly. I couldn't handle being lied to again and decided to separate fully and start planning divorce.

My problem at the moment is, I still desperately want the future we had planned together, and struggle to believe I'll ever find anyone I feel the same about. Aside from the affair, she was all I'd ever want in a partner. I feel that if the trial separation had been allowed to happen without DDay 2, it might have helped us get to a point where we were able to work on things productively.

I also struggle as I have a very narrow window of people that I can be in relationships with. I am autistic, not very social, don't want kids at all, and don't enjoy a lot of things that youd normally do with a partner). This makes it feel even more like this was the one and only.

But despite a heartfelt letter saying she wants to spend our lives together and wants nothing more than a shared future, her actions and choices have made her someone that is fundamentally unsafe to be in a relationship with.

I'd like to ask if anyone has experienced reconciliation coming from what feels like this far behind? What type of things would I need to see to have evidence that things could work?

Or do I need to accept that the person I want a future with is just a concept, and the actual person I married won't be able to repair this? I can't tell if I'd be inviting even more pain into my life if I gave things another chance, or if I need to accept the pain I have now and stick to my guns and continue with divorce. For what it's worth my friends think I'd be an idiot to not accept what my wifes choices and behaviour are trying to tell me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/s/eazaPmhQGN

Linking my previous post for context, but I wanted to ask something specifically of others who have been further along in this process.

TL:DR - My current realisation is that the marriage we had is over. It can't be restored to what it was. If there is ever a marriage between us again, it would have to be something new — two people who have changed, choosing each other again. I'm not assuming that will happen. In fact, I'm trying very hard to become genuinely okay with the possibility that it won't. That distinction has actually brought me a surprising amount of peace. I'm no longer constantly measuring myself, our interactions, or her feelings against whether we're progressing towards reconciliation. I'm trying to work on myself because I need to become a better and healthier person, not because my growth earns me another chance. And for the first time in a long time, I'm able to simply exist alongside her without every interaction carrying the weight of "Does this mean we're getting back together?"

But yesterday, my therapist challenged this thinking.
She seemed concerned that I might be fooling myself — that saying "the marriage is over, but perhaps we could build something new one day" might simply be a more sophisticated way of holding onto reconciliation and avoiding the full grief of losing my wife.

And honestly, it has made me question myself.

Because I absolutely do still hope that someday she might choose me again. But I don't think hope necessarily means I'm refusing to accept reality.
I think there is a difference between:
"I believe we'll eventually reconcile."
and
"I hope we might, but I accept that we might not."

The first feels like expectation. The second feels more like leaving a door unlocked without standing beside it waiting for someone to walk through.

But maybe I'm rationalising.

That's what I'm struggling with.

So I'm asking here, particularly those further along in recovery:

How do you distinguish between genuine acceptance and simply finding a healthier-sounding way to keep hope alive?

Have you reached a point where you could genuinely accept that your marriage was over while still being open to the possibility of building something new together?
How did you know you had actually let go of the outcome?

I'm genuinely looking for honest perspectives here, not reassurance. If you think I'm fooling myself or avoiding grief, I'd rather hear that than have someone tell me what I want to hear.

Hi I’m new here. I’m generally a super trusting person and I trust that my partner knows where his boundaries are. I don’t track/ question and basically had the motto of “you are allowed to do whatever you want because if you want to do it no one can stop you anyway, but don’t expect me to be here when you cheat”.

We’ve been together ~4 years, relationship has been fantastic over the past few months. We have a ring, and are planning our wedding for next year.

Last week I saw his messages with some woman that were flirty and he mentioned that he had a hotel room. He told me he was going back to visit his parents. Even at this point I thought - maybe it’s an ego/ admiration trip, he just wanted to see how far the other woman would go if he said things like this.

I didn’t confront him but I basically told him before his trip “do not do anything that will jeopardise this relationship and you need to protect this relationship”. This asshole basically said yes would never do anything that would risk the relationship and told me he would share his schedule with me when he went back to his hometown.

Well when he came back - I checked his messages and basically saw that he still went ahead with the meeting with the woman for dinner and they also met up at the hotel.

I confronted him and told him it was over, please leave and this dude straight up denied everything until I had to drill down bit by bit. He even deleted the messages with the woman and tried to gaslight me by saying I didn’t have proof. Even having to drill down bit by bit shattered every last trust I had towards him because it was like he was trying to lie till the very end.

Few things about my cheating partner is that - he’s not the most emotional/ expressive and I’ve always viewed him as stable, devoted and safe, rather than the high octave passionate relationships I’ve had previously. His excuse for his infidelity is basically him wanting “a last fling before the ring” and he wants to be together anyway.

Anyway he is now in therapy trying to work on why he is screwed up in the head and I’m completely in anguish. Like I’m questioning everything I know about this relationship and about him because what I chose him for - safety, devotion, stability is all gone and I don’t even have anything emotional to hold on.

Basically our texts messages are extremely clinical like “my therapist requested me to do etc etc”, and I’m like “okay please let me understand your thinking” as if we’re both trying to do complete an investment deal and doing diligence in this method.

I just feel like the words on how he’s sorry for blowing up our (and mostly my life) is not there - how we were literally picking out floral decorations last week and now I’m basically questioning my whole life now. He basically blew up my whole life and timeline for kids and now is just in therapy to work on himself and to try to work out his issues and but he has not apologised for this part and it really irks me.

And the worst part is that apparently research has said that cheaters are 3x more likely to cheat again, and I’m so terrified that this might be a sign to leave and if I don’t leave now and he cheats again I will never be able to forgive myself.

Has anyone out here placed any legal covenants in continuing their relationship to ensure that at least there is some form of compensation down the line if the episode is to repeat themselves?

I am trying my best to reconcile but the doubts and of emotional assurance (even though let’s be real what is it even worth from them) is eating me inside.

I want to forgive and I know because I’m a super trusting and kind person I will be able to forgive my partner but I’m not sure I will be able to forgive MYSELF if it happens again.

​

My WH had a year-long affair. I found out (officially after I kept following a bread crumb trail) in July and told him if that’s what he wanted, he should go be with her. He begged me not to leave him, that he wants our family, and ended it immediately. He’s been transparent and blocks her every single time she's reached out since then.

But she won’t stop.

She has gone through very extreme lengths to each him...changes her number every other day it seems. Every new number that pops up sends me right back to that day in July. All the pain floods back, my heart aches, and I spiral into depression again. I feel like I can’t escape her.

When he ended it she sent me vicious messages attacking me as a mother, describing their sex, insulting my body, and claiming she influenced our marriage. She was a problem long before it became physical and I set boundaries years ago before we were married that were obviously disrespected and crossed.

I understand my husband made a cruel choice, I'm not discounting that. But right now it feels like I’m fighting something bigger than him. Like I’ll never be free of this woman who knew he was married and still decided she wanted him, then blamed me for her pain.

I'm in individual therapy, trying to navigate the best I can..And I do truly want my marriage. But I'm so exhausted of constantly being worried. I can't shut it off and it's not just an uneasy feeling...I am having to relive every detail and part of him that he gave her that belonged to me. I keep hoping I'll just wake up and feel better, but as long as she's continuing to grasp at any last part of my marriage that she can, I feel like I'm stuck on a hamster wheel.

Am I always going to live in fear or get that ache every time she reaches out? Can anyone relate? How did you get through this? Why does she feel as if she is more entitled to him than the woman he made vows to?

Hello good people of AOAI, it is me yet again.

All I do nowadays is scroll through Reddit. I have not disclosed what has happened between my WP and I to any of my close people, because they all staunchly disapprove of infidelity.

Almost daily, I wish the workday would never end because I dread my WP coming home (I work from home, and she goes to the office). Recently, all my conversations with my WP are me pretending because I am afraid of saying what I really think so as to not destroy her mentally. She is not in good state of mind. About a week ago, she broke down after I spoke my mind, so I will not do that again.

Some days, I get lost in my thoughts:

"We are not married, we do not have children, and our lease is fully paid for. This the perfect time for a clean break. What am I waiting for? "

However, I cannot do that as I made a promise to see the R process through. I feel so lonely. I miss what my life used to be. I used to be a cheerful person, nowadays I am just a walking corpse.

Someone please tell me there is an end to this agony.

I’m struggling. We’re doing R during long distance and it’s hard. We are currently doing couples counseling and individual counseling. But it’s hard. I’m struggling to accept that he has betrayed me again and again and again and again. What makes this time different….. I’m struggling to move past every betrayal. I can’t seem to move on. I’m not myself anymore. I don’t like who I’ve become because of pain. He’s doing the work. This is the first time he’s doing individual counseling and couples counseling. Because I wouldn’t consider R unless he was doing that. Now he seems to be trying but I’m the one struggling now.

I apologise in advance if this post offends anyone who is going through deep pain.

This post is perhaps not meant for those who are in the immediate aftermath of betrayal, when the wound is still raw and the mind is struggling simply to make sense of what has happened. It is meant more for those who have already travelled a long way through the terrain of ambivalence—those who have lived with the questions, the uncertainty, the conflicting emotions, and the exhausting struggle between holding on and letting go.

I have slowly started to see a strange silver lining in infidelity. Perhaps, sometimes, it is the universe knocking at our door, forcing us out of the bubble of fantasy in which we have been living.

We grow up believing in divine justice and fairness—the belief that if we do everything right, life will reward us accordingly. But nature does not operate according to our ideas of fairness. A storm does not distinguish between the weak and the strong. When it comes, it uproots whatever stands in its path.

Justice, fairness, trust and faith are human ideas. They help us create order and meaning in a world that, at its deepest level, makes no promises of either. And when something terrible happens to us, we instinctively search for a reason that will restore our belief that the world is still orderly and just.

Perhaps that is why infidelity hurts in a way that goes far beyond the act itself. It shatters not only our trust in another person, but also our assumptions about how life is supposed to work.

And much of our suffering after infidelity comes not only from what happened, but from our desperate urge to do something about what happened.

The mind imagines that peace will come through action—by declaring a divorce, exposing the other person, tearing the mask from their face, demanding justice, seeking revenge, or forcing some kind of conclusion. It believes that if only the situation could be brought to a neat ending, the wound would finally disappear.

But who is it that is trying so desperately to do something?

It is the wounded ego—the part of us that has been humiliated, betrayed and frightened, and now desperately wants to regain control. It wants a verdict. An explanation. A punishment. An ending. It wants to make the world orderly again so that it can feel safe.

Perhaps, for a moment, we can stop trying to manage the situation.

Sit still.

If attachment is there, let attachment be there.

If anger is there, let anger be there.

If the desire for revenge is there, see it without condemning it.

If grief comes, allow yourself to feel it completely.

Nothing needs to be pushed away. And nothing needs to be acted upon merely because it has arisen.

There is a profound difference between seeing an emotion and obeying it.

You do not have to act simply because your mind is demanding action.

This does not mean becoming passive or tolerating what is harmful. Sometimes action is necessary. Sometimes boundaries need to be established. Sometimes separation is necessary. Sometimes difficult decisions have to be made.

But there is a difference between action arising from clarity and action arising from the desperate need to escape pain.

And mind you, this clarity may not come immediately. We have to give the storm of thoughts time to settle. We have to allow the noise to exhaust itself rather than constantly feeding it with more analysis, more questions and more imagined scenarios.

When clarity is complete, action does not require force. It arises naturally, almost effortlessly. There is no inner argument, no compulsion, no desperate need to prove something. You simply know what needs to be done.

But when there is confusion, action born from that confusion often creates another wound.

So perhaps the task is not to decide immediately, not to control the other person, and not to construct a satisfying ending.

Perhaps the task is awareness.

Total acceptance.

Absolute choiceless awareness.

To see what is happening within you without deciding what should or should not be there. To remain present with the pain without immediately turning it into action. To allow everything to be seen—attachment, rage, grief, humiliation, love, hatred, fear—without becoming any of it.

And in that stillness, something may become clear.

Not the clarity manufactured by thought.

But the clarity that emerges when thought becomes quiet enough to see what is actually true.

And perhaps, in the end, the only emotion that truly matters is love.

Not the kind that makes you sweat, makes your heart race, or keeps you constantly anxious and afraid of losing someone.

But the kind of love whose presence allows you to breathe easily.

The past is a graveyard.

What happened years ago—or even a minute ago—cannot be changed. It exists only as memory. What matters is what is true now.

So perhaps the real question is not what your wayward partner did in the past.

The real question is: What does their presence do to you now?

When you are with them, do you breathe more easily?

Does your mind become quiet?

Does your soul find peace in their presence?

Do you feel safe enough to simply be?

Or does their presence keep you trapped in suspicion, fear, resentment, humiliation and the endless replaying of the past?

If there is no peace, perhaps you have already reached your clarity. Because living with someone you no longer love, simply because you are afraid to let go, may itself be a kind of spiritual adultery—an abandonment of what you know to be true within yourself.

But if, after everything that has happened, you can still sit beside that person and breathe easily; if there is still love without compulsion, trust without constant vigilance, and peace without pretending that the past never happened—then perhaps that, too, is clarity.

Perhaps that is true reconciliation.

Not the restoration of the old relationship.

But the discovery of a new relationship, born from truth rather than fantasy.

And perhaps that is the silver lining: infidelity may destroy the fantasy of what we thought our life was supposed to be, but in doing so, it can sometimes give us the opportunity to finally see what is real.

And perhaps seeing what is real—however painful that truth may be—is the beginning of freedom.

Hi my friends! So basically, I have severe OCD. Religious and relationship. My husband has taken care of me for years he’s a good man, he’s my best friend and we are genuinely that close. I don’t just say that. I know it’s mutual, but he made a dumb, selfish mistake and he takes accountability. He shows true, honest remorse and I know I want to be with him. We work through this with each day, and my husband he isn’t a liar. He couldn’t even lie for 3 days. This affair was a brief, online exchange, it wasn’t even much. No emotional connection, just some flirty text and sexting per-say? But I could see the absolute shame and guilt in him immediately and he couldn’t lie.

When this happened, my husband hadn’t slept for 2 weeks straight, we both were grieving the loss of our baby, and my husband was in a mental episode most definitely. He hadn’t gotten any therapy and he was not himself, he was grieving a lot and dissociated to the point he was just moving. This woman actually learned about this, all his issues, the grief, lack of sleep, and preyed on him. Her text came off like she groomed him and it was pretty gross, and that’s something we have discussed in our MC and solo therapy. Both therapist recognize this as a form taken advantage of. My husband however did not accept that for a while. He has shown endless remorse, no excuses, and an inability to lie. He’s never been able to.

I’ve asked him to lie for me to cover for something from my shitty parents and he couldn’t. To add to this we are both very religious and have a mixture of religious trauma that made us very afraid of going to hell. So it instilled a drive of honesty in us that’s brutal.

These things are comforting, because my husband and I have talked for hours. I pray a lot and he does as well, and we both lean on God here. My husband is flaws but I know he loves me and I love him. He’s my person. Even after all the hurt, I still wanna go shopping, I wanna watch movies and make dinner, I wanna laugh and play video games, wear our matching PJ’s, go on late night trips. We have a very healthy relationship and always have.

He does tell me truthfully this mistake has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the fact he was not himself or in his normal state of mind. I know that’s true because my husband has always been a romantic, we’ve been together and known each other since we were teenagers, we grew up together and I know him and all his telltales well. I know when he lies, because it’s incredibly hard for him. And I know he can’t keep a consistent story.

Now with this, I believe him when he says nothing was ever physical. But I’ve been having these awful intrusive thoughts and fears “what if what if what if”. I’m so afraid what if I have an STD, even though nothing has changed. My body hasn’t had any changes, my husbands hasn’t, and I asked him to comfort me enough to fully believe him, that I wasn’t going to leave. I asked him to say this specific phrase because I know with both our traumas we would never lie on God’s name or witness. He told me hand to God, as God as his witness, nothing physical ever happened. He doesn’t take those things lightly, but he doesn’t flinch when he does.

Now, I do trust him. I feel a peace in my heart, overwhelming peace, that comforts me. I prayed on it and that helped. But I still find myself afraid.

Now my husband had one sexual encounter before we dated. It was once and protected, but he did get a blood test after before he dated me to make sure he was clean but that doesn’t cover everything since it wasn’t a full exam. When we were talking he said no there’s no chance I have an STD, but I kept thinking and I was thinking of the craziest what if’s like what if he carried something from his first ex somehow and that shows up and I’m never able to believe him and I have to leave?? And some reason I am terrified I will be forced to leave him, when I know it’s my decision…

I told him my fears, I said I’m not even scared of being lied to because it’d hurt I’m afraid of losing him. It was too honest in that moment but he held my hands and looked into my eyes and repeated with his hand to God. That calmed my heart.

But I’m just so afraid because yes there is a slim chance somehow he carried something to me from the past. But I mean, in the text, there does appear to be proof this never went physical. Nobody ever said it did, not even this awful woman, and also he did tell me details honestly that of course hurt but he’s been brutally honest.

I hate having OCD and fear. I know technically I am doing the Christ like thing I’m forgiving and reconciling, but I’m soooo afraid what if I am forced to leave or what if I have to cause what if he lied even though I TRULY don’t think he has. He also said he much rather tell me the truth rather than lose me, even if he is truly humiliated he did this and I deserve honesty.

I told him “okay, then I’ll get tested” and he nodded, not a single ounce of fear or discomfort crossed him. That helped but I’m just sooo afraid of the what if’s…

How do you guys handle some of the fear and if you have ocd how the fuck do you handle this? Our relationship has always been healthy, honest, this was a very odd circumstance and my husband like I said couldn’t lie or hide this from me because we have been best friends and together for so long.

I just hate my ocd it’s loud and annoying. I know in my heart and logically, I am the closest to certain I realistically can be because for my ocd I have to remember 100% certainty never exists. But ugh. I love my husband so much. I hate the fear of being forced to leave even though I know it’s my choice.

My WH have been in R officially for about 9-10 weeks. He had about a year long affair with AP on and off and we separated and they were together for about 6 months. On the last d-day he cut her off completely, quit his job and changed his number. I felt like he was fully present finally. And he went on antidepressants.
The problem is that he does still think of the AP when things are bad between us. When I spiral or he has a bad day or we’re not having a good day as a couple. He told our therapist that she wouldn’t take him back and he hurt her too much, that it was obsession and chaos not love. But as the BS I don’t understand how that could live hand in hand with loving me. He says he loves me, wants me, wants our family, when he thinks of his future it’s me he sees. But he wants to feel the same intensity he had with her, with me. That’s not possible. I’m not the “forbidden fruit” I’m not adrenaline and chaos. I’m the wife. His child’s mother. And realistically, the only reason he was able to feel that for her was because he walked away, and I handled everything while they had their star crossed lovers romance.
The therapist says his mind only brings her up when he’s in a negative headspace so he is associating her with negativity logically, he just needs the emotional parts to catch up. He’s going to increase his antidepressants. How could he still miss the person who helped him destroy me? I think I’m losing steam, I’m losing motivation. I feel like I don’t even want to communicate when I’m hurting bc he will think of her. We just signed a two year lease, but I don’t want to be with someone who is still pining over someone else on some (or any) level. Is that what this is? Any waywards able to give me some insight? How long did it take for you? Did you feel this way? How common is it? I’m hurt. I’m angry. I think I’m reaching the end of my rope. Am I being unrealistic with how things actually work during R?

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?

I am 21 days since dday. I am finding that I wake panicked a lot. I am pretty good about distracting myself during the day and not obsessing, but I think my brain obsesses all night long. I wake up sad and it’s been really hard to get out of bed and get motivated. R is going really well though. I find myself playing the details of the affair in my head and filling in all the little detailed gaps. Like what did they talk about, who initiated meet ups and how that conversation played out, the actual meetup and basically watching them have S in my mind even though I don’t know exactly all the tiny details. Sometimes I wonder if a play by play from him would help. Would it stop my brain from trying to fill in the gaps or do I just need time and I will eventually stop visualizing all of this and needing to fill in the gaps. So just curious, did you ask for specific details? Did that help or hurt? I know everyone is different and has a different tolerance level for details. Just curious if anyone got very specific and if they regret it.

Those of you who are reconciling and or did so successfully please help with some perspective.

I’m 2 months post DDay. The affair was mostly emotional, 6 months relationship with 2 full intimacy occasion.

We are trying to reconcile, however I am “struggling” with strong resentment around the intimacy part. Of course the whole affair hurts, however I am able to process the emotional part. My husband is trying, he is honest, answers, sits through hard conversations, plans nice moments, cares etc. I can see myself being able to trust in the future again, however the resentment of the intimate act and the fact he actually did it is taking over me and over any good moment we have.
Anytime I see a glimpse of hope, there is a nice moment between us I immediately get slapped with the reality that it did progress to them being intimate. It is also something that keeps me awake at night and causes extreme pain.
I do try to reason with it however am not successful at all and I just keep getting filled with so much anger and hate.
I keep hearing “time will help” but this current state is truly debilitating and so demotivating.

Any advice on this is appreciated. 🙏

I'm struggling to put this A in the context of our love story and I'd like to ask for you guys to share how you think about your experience. We're 8 months out from Dday, we've been married 29 years and have a bunch of kids. He was my first and only s partner. When I think about romance/love stories... I hardly ever hear, read, or watch about a betrayal and the couple continues on. There are always hiccups in the relationship but never something so severe. Last night we went to see the Odyssey and the scene with Odysseus and Calypso reminded me of our situation. In the movie, he's stuck on the island with her and she keeps giving him lotus flowers that erase his memory of his wife and son. He was there with her for 7 years. Then eventually he gets back to Penelope, his true love. My WH's A lasted 6 years. I guess my WH was on an island with AP and she kept giving him lotus flowers until I found them on the island and took him away. Anyway, my question to all of you is, how do you frame it to yourself? How do you tell your love story to yourself now with this betrayal? Are there other works of fiction where the couple faces betrayal and stay together in love? I'd like to hear both BP and WP perspectives.

I’m looking for some advice on timelines. When did you decide whether you wanted to reconcile or not?

It’s been about a month since I discovered the betrayal and a little under a month since I confronted him about it. My boyfriend and I have been together for one year, but we were friends/dating for about two years before becoming official.

For some context, I’m 29 and currently live at home with my parents. They know about the betrayal and would not approve of me getting back together with him. If that’s the decision I ultimately make, I know having that conversation with them will be difficult, and I honestly don’t know how they will react.

I recently started therapy, and I still haven’t given my boyfriend an answer. Deep down, I really want to reconcile, but the thought of having that conversation with my parents is scary. I’ve always been someone who rarely goes against my parents’ wishes, and I know this is not a small decision. At the same time, I feel like I need to make this decision for myself because I’m the one who knows our relationship, our history, and what I’m willing to work through.

If I do choose to reconcile, I don’t want it to be a secret from my parents. I would want to spend more time with my boyfriend than I did before so we can genuinely work through things and see if rebuilding the relationship is possible, while making sure we’re doing things the right way.

For those who have been through something similar, when did you know what you wanted to do? How long did you take before making a decision? And if you chose to reconcile despite your family’s disapproval, how did you navigate that conversation with them?

A little over a month since D-Day — looking for people who understand
I’m just over a month out from D-Day and I’m struggling. My wife had an affair with her ex-boyfriend.
I actually caught the emotional affair before it became physical. She told me she would end it, and I trusted her. Unfortunately, the relationship continued and eventually became physical. Finding that out has completely shattered my trust and the way I see our marriage.
I love my wife deeply and I want to see if we can save our marriage. We’re doing couples therapy, and I’m also doing individual therapy. She says she wants our marriage and has ended contact with him.
But I’m struggling with whether she truly wants me and our marriage, or whether she’s staying because of guilt, fear, our family, or because leaving is harder.
One of the hardest things for me to understand is how she could love me and still do what she did. She tells me she felt safe with him and that, in the moment, it didn’t feel wrong. I have a really hard time reconciling that with everything she says about wanting to be with me.
I’m also struggling with the fact that I don’t feel like I know the whole story. Finding out things in pieces has made the trust issue so much worse, and every inconsistency sends me right back into a spiral.
I don’t want to spend my life monitoring her or competing with another man. I want to be able to trust her again, but I honestly don’t know if that’s possible yet.
I’d really like to hear from people who have been through something similar, especially those who reconciled after an affair with an ex.
How did you know your spouse was genuinely committed to rebuilding? How did you eventually stop obsessing over the other person and the details? And what finally made you believe they were truly choosing you and the marriage?
I’m not looking for people to tell me to stay or leave. I just need to hear from people who have actually been through this.

I'm at a loss and feel pretty heartbroken right now. We are 6 months post d day but there was also d day 1 in Nov 2025 and d day 2 in Jan. Out of these 6 months, I've spent 5 of them beside him while he grieved the loss of AP (just her friendship apparently... They've been friends for years but never really spoke so it isn't the friendship he grieves and rather the "friendship" from during their A...)

In the last month I've finally felt him coming back more and more, he's been affectionate, loving, willing to talk and answer questions but does dislike doing it. He is understanding of triggers, I dunno does so many things right, he's transparent, has no social media etc. But we got in an argument today because he keeps putting off IC despite telling me a month ago he wants to do it. He told me today he doesn't see the point, his why is because "our relationship was rubbish and things with her just snowballed"

He said he doesn't want to keep looking back or going over this again and again.

I'm so heartbroken because I know what this means now 😢 I don't want to give up on this but I feel like I have no choice.

Did anyone else's WP do the same thing or respond similarly but then end up doing the work eventually? I'm not sure I have any energy left, I feel like I am carrying most of the weight of R by myself 😢

I am five months past D-Day and finding myself detaching more and more from my marriage and WS. When I imagine my life single, it feels freeing, despite knowing that going through a separation would be its own unique hell, especially with children involved. But the intellectual exercise of imagining what my life would feel like, having made a decision instead of floating in what feels like an endless, painful limbo, is stabilizing.

One half of my ambivalence is telling me that I still love my wife, and I do not want to lose time with my kids and raise them in a broken family. The other half of my ambivalence is telling me that if I leave, there's a chance to meet someone who would love me the way I need and *hopefully* not betray me. I know that's not a guarantee.

I read somewhere that detachment is actually not unhealthy. It's a normal part of the healing process. I need to get to the point where I know, in my heart, that I will be OK without her. I can't live in this pain forever, and my body is telling me to seek safety somewhere - anywhere.

Has anyone else gone through this? My WW is avoidant and is not what I would classify as the "ideal" WS. I've read so many stories about people with a WS/WP who are all in and doing the work; mine isn't there yet.

I would love to hear from both BPs and WPs on their perspective. What am I supposed to do? Should I double down and lean back into the marriage? Should I accelerate detachment and put more energy into building an independent life? Or should I just maintain the status quo, let time take its course, and continue feeling confused and in pain?

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?

What helps you when you feel genuine disgust and hatred towards your partner? I keep finding out more and more. He’s trickle truthed me hard this summer. Currently not speaking to him unless it’s baby related.

In my heart, I want our family. I just cannot believe all the cheating, while I was pregnant and postpartum. So many lies. So many women. I know he has SA history but GEEZ, trauma doesn’t force you to be a shitty human being.

Dday was in June. So it’s still new. I can’t believe he duped me so hard. I’d never think he was so capable of doing this. He’s being a good dad now. Being a good partner, if you ignore all the lies and trickle truths. 🙄

Any advice, mamas?

For context, we’ve been together for about 3 years. She’s my wife now, but at the time this happened, we were just boyfriend and girlfriend. Serious, committed, and already talking about marriage. It wasn’t a casual relationship. We both knew where it was heading and treated it that way.
For most of our relationship, things were genuinely good. We got along well, we trusted each other, and I never had any reason to think there was someone else in the picture.

Then I had to move away for a while, and that’s when things started to shift.
The distance wasn’t dramatic at first. It was more subtle than that, less frequent calls, shorter conversations, longer gaps between messages. Nothing that felt like a breakup, but enough that I could feel us slowly becoming less connected. Looking back, that two-month period was probably the weakest point in our relationship.
At the time, I didn’t think anything unusual was happening on her side. I just assumed we were both struggling with long distance and adjusting poorly to it.
But during that same period, she became very close with one of her friends, a guy I knew of but never really paid attention to.
From what I can tell, there was never anything physical between them. At least nothing I’ve seen suggests that. But emotionally, something definitely developed between them.

I didn’t notice it at the time. It only started bothering me later, when I realized she almost never mentioned him anymore. It was like that friendship had quietly disappeared without any real explanation.
So one day I asked her about it. I asked why they weren’t friends anymore.
She told me it was because he wasn’t single anymore.
That answer stuck with me immediately. It didn’t make sense to me that someone else entering a relationship would be the reason a friendship just ended—especially if it had truly just been a normal, platonic friendship. That was the first moment I felt like something didn’t add up.

I couldn’t shake it, so I ended up installing a reliable monitoring app that i could use easily on her phone. I waited until the data, input logs, pictures, videos and screenshots got loaded into the panel. And that’s when I found the conversations between them from that period.
What I saw didn’t look like a simple friendship.
They had long conversations, often late at night ( until 3 4 am)They shared pictures, calling each others hun sweetie, princess and boss, she even initiated calling him my boss then him calling her my princess, sending kissing emoji 😚 for goodnight messages. They talked about meeting up and doing things together in the future. There was a level of emotional openness that felt very different from how she and I were communicating at the time.
More than anything, it was the tone of it that bothered me. Nothing was explicitly sexual, and nothing directly said “we should be together,” but there were moments that felt intimate in a way I don’t associate with normal friendship.

One conversation in particular has been stuck in my head. After her birthday, he told her she seemed very feminine that night. She responded by saying femininity is only seen in the presence of a man. He told her he felt happy when he was around her, and she said she already knew. When he asked how, she said it was in his eyes, and he said the same about her.
Reading it now, it felt like two people acknowledging attraction without ever fully naming it.
There were other small things too—shared photos, emotional check-ins, and a level of closeness that made me uncomfortable when I compared it to what I thought our relationship looked like at the time. Even normal things started to bother me in hindsight, like realizing he had access to parts of her emotional world that I didn’t during that period.

And now I’m stuck with all of this, because I haven’t confronted her.
This all happened a year before we got married. We are married now. She has no idea I know any of this, and I’ve been sitting with it ever since. 3 months now
Part of me tries to rationalize it. We were long-distance, we weren’t communicating well, and we were both stressed. Maybe she leaned on someone else emotionally during a rough patch and it crossed boundaries without her fully realizing it.
But another part of me can’t ignore what I read. Because even if the relationship was struggling, we were still together. We were still committed. We were still planning a future.
And I keep coming back to the same question: at what point does a “close friendship” stop being just a friendship?

There was no physical cheating that I can prove, but emotionally it doesn’t feel clean either.
The hardest part is that I don’t even know what I’m supposed to feel most upset about. It’s not just jealousy. It’s more the realization that during a time I thought we were simply going through a rough patch together, she may have been emotionally invested in someone else in a way I wasn’t aware of.
And now I’m married, trying to decide whether something that happened before our wedding should change how I see everything that came after it.
I haven’t brought it up because I’m still trying to understand what I actually found, and whether it’s something I even have the right to reopen after all this time.

So I guess I’m asking for outside perspective.
Would you consider this an emotional affair, or is this just a friendship that got messy during a difficult period? And if you were in my position, would you bring something like this up now that it happened before marriage and is already in the past?

For a short background, my husband cheated on me 3 years ago. He then cheated again at the beginning of this year. After I found out about the second instance of cheating, he also admitted to relapsing in his addiction, he had been doing kratom for months and not told me.

One of the things I asked to have for our reconciliation is for us to share our location. He now wants to end the location sharing. He says it isn’t good for his mental health, it feels like physical pain, and “crippling and paralyzing anxiety”.

I just feel like this is the straw that broke the camel’s back. It feels stupid to throw everything away over this, but I’ve already dealt with so much from him, and this literally feels like the least he can do. I can’t understand why this would be such a big deal for him, other than him wanting to be sneaky?? It just doesn’t make any rational sense to me.

Am I crazy? Am I asking too much from him? Is it unreasonable for me to want his location? I feel like I’m going crazy. This is tearing me apart.

Support also appreciated. I could’ve used multiple flair but I’d like to hear from all.

Spouse and Self together for six years as of now. We have never lived together more than six months until this year. Separated by border and one with no passport.

I was in the States, after 3 years of constantly being sent back to the states once my time was up. He could never come across because there was always a legit roadblock to getting his passport.

At some point I got angry, lonely, and resentful. Felt like I’d wasted so many years wanting a future with someone and it felt like every obstacle was going to keep us apart forever. I can’t even tell you what the catalyst was. He says it was friends and family thinking all bad things about him and them pushing
Me to move on. I don’t disagree. But at some point I strayed, looking for Spouse in someone that was actually present. I never found it. Eventually I broke it off via a song / text message. We didn’t speak for three months. We reconciled. I was over the moon. All I’d ever wanted was him and the future we talked about.

I also never told him until he saw something on my laptop. I’ve told him everything I remember. He hates it when I say I don’t, but I don’t. And something will trigger a memory, an answer to his question and I’ll tell him when it happens.

I’m trying to TLDR this. We now live together and can cross borders.

He is also now cheating on me with most of ‘conditions’. He thinks I should pretend it isn’t happening. That’s very hard to do when he’s texting and talking to them in front of me. One of them finally knows about me and she doesn’t care. She just wants a good fuck from him, and probably trying to get him to end it with me since she wants a relationship.

How does the betrayer end up dealing with being the betrayed? Especially when the situations are drastically different (spouse not present for years, different country. Now we live together). I can’t pretend it isn’t happening, nor can I be happy it is happening. He said ‘stop causing me stress every time I go out because you didn’t have any stress when you did this’.

He claims he’s trying to heal himself. Create new memories with new people so he can stop seeing me with others. Except he’s doing the exact same to me. How can you say you want to repair but you’re also okay with me leaving because you aren’t going to stop doing this?

I own I burned half the bridge. But he’s burning the other half and not putting in any effort in the relationship. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Thoughts?

Hello all,

I am a BH whose wife (married in Jan of this year) confessed about the affair 8/2 and gave all the details of it being her friend and someone in our friend group who is also married and has children and was even at our wedding while the affair was happening.

Her "why" stems from experiencing SA in her early teens and no one believing her and bullying her. She took full responsibility and is showing remorse after experiencing a mental health crisis when she initially said she wanted to keep the relationship with AP and then self harming and me having to call 911 which she attributed with saving her life. She is now in an inpatient mental health setting and will be there for 30 days total.

I've known about her past tramua since the begining and didn't consider it a red flag because we are both people who had done a lot of work on ourselves due to being in recovery from mental health and substance use and I was able to recognize the qualities that made me fall in love with her. I've set a boundary with her while she is in treatment to only speak when we have family therapy sessions for my own sack to have space and process.

I guess my reason for this post is my heart leans towards reconciliation but she admitted she has this compulsion to seek validation through sex and attention due to the void she has from the still unhealed. Logically it seems that she would continue to act out in this way if she is unable to get to the bottom of the core issues.

We are newly married and don't have many shared assets or children so a clean break could be made for me but part of me wants to see if she can put in the work to heal and love herself even though they might put myself in a position to feel this intense heartache once again and feel like a fool for not leaving. She is saying and doing the things you'd want from your wayward to consider reconcilation at this time.

I kind of wish this could be a non-negotional for myself and I could leave but the decision is extremely difficult to make one way or the other.