SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

We are about 8 months out from DDay. Things aren't too volatile any more and we generally co-exist fine but not with much affection. We've both had IC and MC. For context, I was the WS and had a predominantly EA over long-distance that was on occasion a PA, which lasted around 8 months. I am still putting in the work with safe behaviours and reading/research.

I am just wondering if it is possible that my BS will ever be happy again? I can't see them ever loving me again. Not fully anyway, and certainly not in the same way as before. How do you move past the feeling that things will never be ok again?

They have said that they only want R for the sake of being a proper family for our children. I worry that it isn't fair for them to be sad for however many months and years it takes to realise that they can't feel the same again.

You can be....but it takes a lot of time and effort. And, you BOTH have to be all in. You have to recognize that your BS may just be done. Your experience or perception of what your BS is going through, is VASTLY differently from their soul crushing reality.

I'm a BS 4 1/2 years out from DDay. I run into the OW at least once a week in a very small community. So, I get triggered often. We had to learn how to plan for that and how to lessen the blow.

I didn't commit to staying or going. I committed to working on it. It took a long time for me to believe and recognize the work he was doing.

8 months out, I don't think I had even remembered how to laugh. Being the BS is devastating. One thing that helped was my FWH communicating to me how grateful he was that I even was there working on it. He had to learn how to express emotions to me in ways he didn't before. We also had a lot of high quality counseling, both IC and MC. (That took a couple of years)

I am just wondering if it is possible that my BS will ever be happy again? I can't see them ever loving me again. Not fully anyway, and certainly not in the same way as before. How do you move past the feeling that things will never be ok again?

Tell your BS this. Talk to them about it. If you sincerely feel this.... Tell them how terrible you feel being the source of their ongoing pain and trauma. Tell them that you'd take it all back if you could. Ask them what, if anything, you can do in this moment to show them your love and remorse.

For me, I have come to a place where I am happy again. I'm grateful for the man my FWH has become. I'm happier in the marriage we have now, I hope he is too. We learned skills we never had before. But it took a herculean effort on both our parts. This is a marathon, not a sprint. It really does take 2-5 years to heal from this as a BS.

The timeline of our recovery kind of corresponded to our teen coming of age to be ready for university. Knowing that it took 2-5 years to heal...our son would graduate in 3....I decided that I would work on it for 3 years. If we could not get to a better place by then, I'd have known that I gave it my best shot and that if our son was to have a broken home, at least he'd be closer to adulthood and I told myself, mistakenly, that this might soften the blow of a divorce for our son. I also have questioned, particularly in a bad trigger, if this was worth it at all. If I wouldn't be happier having moved on. I wonder that some days still. And, then I think about the nearly 30 years we've been together through so many beautiful highs and also terrible lows....but that we come together through them all.

They have said that they only want R for the sake of being a proper family for our children. I worry that it isn't fair for them to be sad for however many months and years it takes to realise that they can't feel the same again

No part of an A or the recovery from an A is fair for the BS. None of it. Nada....do not pass go....do not collect $200. It is grossly unfair, and utterly devastating. As the WS, there is only so much that you can do to help the BS heal. BS have to do our own work....and in doing it, we might decide that the marriage isn't worth it. You have to let go of the outcome of this and do your best to the version of you that you can be. 8 months out....I think I was still in such a dark place that FWH/A/OW was the source of anything bad that happened in the day. It took a long time for me to recover from the trauma of finding out that my husband and female friend were capable of hurting me SO much.

The pain and sadness does lessen, but it will take longer than you want.

I worry that it isn't fair for them to be sad for however many months and years it takes to realise that they can't feel the same again.

Ladybugmaam said everything so well, especially the part about fairness. There is not one single aspect of this that is fair for the BS. It will forever remain unfair. Only the BS can decide whether or not they can overcome that.

My experience with happiness is that it is possible and it can be deeper and richer than before, but it will be overshadowed by fear, sadness, and anger for quite a while. Years. A BS can be perfectly chipper, and then sink to the lowest of lows in an instant with one single trigger. Your job is to remain constant and true and prove with actions that you are someone who can be trusted. You'll never be trusted fully again, but I don't think it's wise to trust another human 100% anyway. That was one of the big lessons that I learned from infidelity: Never trust blindly.

They have said that they only want R for the sake of being a proper family for our children.

My recommendation is to give healing a chance for several years. If the emotional intimacy doesn't return, you both still have agency to make your own decisions later on down the line.

Post affair couples have to find their new normal. And that takes time and effort to get to. Some take months, most take years.

You made the choice to insert an affair, not just into your life, but your relationship….and it’s part of the history of your shared life….forever. Over time, it can fade into the background, then deep background and then deep deep background. And so on.

That doesn’t mean the relationship can’t be intimate, loving, fulfilling and more informed than it ever was. IMO we’ll never get to 100% trust again. Is that a product of the affair or just maturing and exposure to the real world? Idk. But it’s our reality.

After the affair, if committed to healing, you expose yourself to information, learning and considerations that weren’t there for you when you made it up together as you went along. We met at 19, married at 22 and had kids by 25. Love, like so much of my life in younger years, was defined by our expectations/ideals rather than experiences. Sometimes, I miss the certainty of those years, but I appreciate where we are now. And building a toolkit in a relationship for communication, fighting, planning, the bedroom and so on …..CANNOT be undervalued.

I’m content. I love our life and am so glad we fought so hard for us. And boy did we.

And it’s not just for our family. Our daughter is getting married in 2 months, and we’ll be there together. In all the bittersweet wonderfulness of watching our baby begin her journey. While that is very meaningful, it’s our life, it’s my life, that feeds my contentment these days.

Are you truly trying to be ‘fair’ to BS as they navigate post A in months or years? Or are you trying to gauge the end game? Is it a mercy killing to walk away from something that’s might fail at anyway? You don’t have to answer for us but for yourself.

Your partners is not sad but, devastated. Sitting in the debris of what you nuked hardcore. I don’t want to debate or be unfair but when I read about a mostly EA with some PA, I can’t help but to wonder if it is a descriptive detail or equivocation. As you post more it will become clear. So let me be clear. Right now words matter, empathy matters. Defensiveness, lack of transparency, mathing out the odds of work/time and results will set you back. So think about your actions, journal and discuss them with IC with radical honesty.

Ultimately, you each are responsible for your own healing and work. But your attitude, decisions, words and effort do matter to the BS healing trajectory. Because they will be looking for verification that you are a safe partner. Not just once, but again and again over time. And there are ways you can demonstrate that on a daily basis.

It’s a bumpy ride. And if they haven’t hit anger yet, you might want to buckle up… it’s coming. It’s up to you both. Every day you decide to keep being battle buddies in the fight of your life or not.

[This message edited by redrock at 5:49 AM, Friday, August 18th]

And, you BOTH have to be all in

That depends. You're 8 months out. We don't know how long you continued to lie to him after dday,or how many ddays you've had. We don't know if you confessed,or if you were caught. Or how deep your EA was. Basically we have little information to be able to give you a decent response. At only 8 months out,I disagree that he needs to be all in. You do,certainly. But,right now, he needs to be watching your actions, to determine if you are going to become a safe partner.

The fact that you said,

I am still putting in the work with safe behaviours and reading/research

, is a bit telling. You said "still." Like you think it's been a long time. It's been 8 months. You will need to do this for years.

What work are you doing on yourself?

Are you fully transparent? Does he have full access to all accounts and the phone? Passwords included?

Were you tested for stds?

Did you write a full timeline?

Have you answered his questions without anger or defensiveness? Blame?

Have you figured out why you cheated. Why did you?

Have you dropped all friends who knew of the affair?

Have you gone NC with OM?

Has your BH told the OBS?

The truth is..sure, you both can be happy again. But happy together? That depends on the work you do..and the work he does IF he believes you are trying to become a safe partner.

[This message edited by HellFire at 4:15 PM, Friday, August 18th]

Your post concerns me in 2 main ways.

First, the term 'occasional PA' looks like minimization to me. A PA is a PA. I guess there may be a difference between once and more than once, but 2 times or 200 times ... I'm not sure the difference is meaningful.

Second, 'had IC' really bothers me. One doesn't 'have IC'. The goal of IC is to change something about one's self. It ends when the change had been accomplished or when the change has been shown to be impossible or something like that.

More important, IMO a WS, to be a candidate for R, has to commit to changing from betrayer to good partner, and that almost always takes a lot more time than one portion of 8 months, because it takes more time to build the habits of a good partner.

One sign that you have more work to do is that you can't see your BS loving you again. Well, how can they love you if you think it's impossible?

So I don't think you've healed yet, and you need to heal in order to R. You heal you.

What has your H done to heal himself? Because he's the only one who can do that. You can give emotional support, but the BS has to heal the BS.

Staying for the kids ... I'm with you. Why stay if that's the limit of one's goals. If you stay for the kids, what happens when the kids move out?

My recos:

1) Get yourself back into IC with a goal of changing from betrayer to good partner. You can do that without your BS. And if you split, you prepare yourself for and new relationship.

2) Talk with your BS about what you and thay both want. R is a joint effort with a goal of building an M that serves you both. To do that, you need to be an active participant in defining that new M will be. And if you don't come to an agreement to enjoy life together for the rest of your lives, my reco would be to call it quits now, because the earlier you start on a life of thriving after infidelity, the sooner you'll enjoy life again.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:23 PM, Friday, August 18th]

It's hard to say what his path to healing is and what permanent damage you will have to live with. And you will have to live with permanent damage.

I've posted before that I am happy and married but not necessarily "happily married". Working towards that still. I do sometimes associate my feelings of happiness with being married to my fWW. I'm still not able to honestly say "I'm a happily married man" or that I'm "happily reconciled" even though I am happy and reconciled.

You have to either be OK with this type of reality, or you need to deeply consider what his needs and your needs are in R.

My wife didn't put on her list of needs that I feel happy and proud as it relates to our marriage or reconciliation. It wasn't on my list of needs either.

Still working towards that.

I am just wondering if it is possible that my BS will ever be happy again? I can't see them ever loving me again. Not fully anyway, and certainly not in the same way as before. How do you move past the feeling that things will never be ok again?

They have said that they only want R for the sake of being a proper family for our children. I worry that it isn't fair for them to be sad for however many months and years it takes to realise that they can't feel the same again.

The answer is maybe, or maybe not. For some BS the A is a deal breaker, even if they don't want it to be. You can read some posts on this forum where BS's sound similar to your BS. For me, the A was not a dealbreaker - the lies in the aftermath was. For others, they can't get past the A no matter what. Both positions are fine.

All that being said, I am not a fan of staying together "for the children." As a child who had to live though some of that myself, until my parents separated and divorced, the sting of the separation was temporary, but the weird tense environment of them together was everyday and uncomfortable. People cite to studies that children of divorce "do" worse than of married parents, but there are no studies I'm aware of, of how children do where parents stay together versus separate post-infidelity (would be tough to do as most people do not talk about infidelity, especially when they stay together).

Living in a fake-love/post-A environment can be (and I think is) way more destructive. To find out your parents were staying together for you, as a child, later on as an adult is a head-trip of epic proportion. I am glad my parents didn't stay together for us. They would have been doing us no favors, and wouldn't have been doing theirselves any either.

All that aside, there is no way to know how your BS will do, or how you will. My WH decided to "end" things with me about 6 months after our final d-day, because he felt like I would never be happy again (that didn't last - he changed his mind about that but I left anyway). I will admit, it pissed me off, because I felt like in addition to all the bullshit I had to deal with that now there was a timeline for me to feel like "myself" again too. It just felt like more unfairness.

So, I suppose you can find out if your BS really has no intention of reconciling the marriage - if the A was a dealbreaker. I would frame it along the lines of doing what THEY wants - what THEY need. You are not going to pressure them to R if they really don't want that - you want to do what they wants and while you want to stay and fight for the marriage, if they really does not want to, you will respect that too. Then you can decide how to reframe your relationship. If they really feels that way then I would consider separating for the reasons I stated above re staying together for kids. If they are truly unsure, then I would say give it time and take the advice you have been given here and keeping fighting the good fight.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 8:12 PM, Saturday, August 19th]

They have said that they only want R for the sake of being a proper family for our children.

I'm a BH, but I felt the same way as your BW over 16 years ago. Nobody can predict your future, but R worked out fine for us. We have a good marriage and the affair is way behind us.

You have a very good wife with strong morals (but you probably know this already). My suggestion would be to take an active part in your wife's recovery. Read some good books on healing your spouse from infidelity. In particular, determine the aspects of your character that led you to betraying your wife AND family for so long. As you begin to understand the psychology of infidelity, share the revelations you learn about your behavior with your wife, and what actions you will take to make sure you never cheat or lie to her again. Remember, actions speak louder than words. Your promises mean very little right now. It takes time and consistency to regain the trust.

Remember, it's your job to fix this, no matter what it takes. It's not up to your wife to "give over it" in some fixed period of time. She will likely regain the trust and happiness again, if you can prove you're a good, honest and moral person. In her mind, you already fooled her once and she's probably wondering what kind of person she really married.

[This message edited by HardenMyHeart at 2:04 AM, Sunday, August 20th]