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At the end of the day my soon to be ex decided he couldn’t forgive me. He couldn’t move past the betrayal. We had this discussion just this evening and I am heartbroken, stunned, and truly just lost at this point. I really thought we were on the road to reconciliation. But in the course of his own therapy he says he’s come to the realization that the betrayal is just too much for him to overcome and he doesn’t think he’d ever be able to fully trust me again.

I know many will say I have not right to be heart broken seeing how I’m the one who did this in the first place. But I am truly devastated right now. There’s more to say but for now this is all I can bring myself to write. I’m just looking at what seems like an empty future with no bright days ahead.

Lost and Hoping:

I know you're devastated, but it's not over. It's just over for now. I've seen people re-marry after divorce. But I'd like to offer a different perspective on a couple points as you continue your self-reconciliation for the time being.

a) It's not over until he's engaged or married to someone else. Until then, keep climbing uphill and you may see him at the top.

b) It's possible he will or even has forgiven you, but forgiving you doesn't necessarily equate to wanting to be with you. I think there's an important distinction to be made here. Just a thought to consider.

c) In my experience, it wasn't that I couldn't forgive my fiance, it was actually I couldn't get past 3 things, all of which fell under the betrayal umbrella and played a huge part in my decision to end the engagement.

Your description of your husband's experience resembled mines, so I'm sharing with you a couple of contributing factors weighig into my decision.

1. The physical affair. Of course quite painful and penetrating, but you already know this. No need to elaborate.

2. The indecent and disrespectful means you treated your husband (your description) while in the affair is what I recall as being as hurtful and demeaning as the physical aspect. It's one thing to dishonor the relationship and another to disrespect the individual. It was like a double betrayal.

It's one thing to lose a relationship and another to help a person lose him/herself which is how one feels when treated unkind, unpleasant and unworthy of human decency. I'm still aquaintances with my fiance but two decades later, I wouldn't consider her as a mate because I saw the lack of decency she was capble of delivering and I wouldn't risk being treated like that again.

3) You mentioned it was around your father's death when you saw the difference between your AP and husband. In my experience their was a similar circumstance that enabled my fiance to see things differently. What's interesting is my fiance shared with me the differences between me and her AP thinking I would be impressed with being better in her eyes, but it was the exact opposite for me.

If I'm your husband I would be thinking if your dad didn't get ill, you'd still be with AP and still treating me as if was unworthy to stand in the same room as you. While you can respond by saying you would have eventually realized this, it would come across as self serving and self depracating in hopes to reverse the previous wrongs.

It's possible the clarity you achieved could have occurred 2, 3 or 4 years later....or never. For me personally, I didn't want to chance my future with my fiance since her change of mind was caused by circumstances and not necessarily during a normal period of inner reflection.

I'm sharing this so that you can gain a possible deeper perspective. Not being able to get past it were my exact words because that's what I felt and the three issues cited were the ones I couldn't get past, specifically.

Like him, it took me over a year to reach the finality of our engagement to occur. Like you and your husband, I straddled the fence for a while, but was always strongly leaning to break it off. I felt my fiance was sincere, but I could not get past the 3 areas cited above.

So, if you haven't discussed your mistreatment of him or the enlightenment caused by your father's death, then consider discussing it with him if you haven't done so already. Discussion may lead to a deeper sense of remorse, which is a necessity for him to move forward with you one day.

Lastly, and it's related to my first comment. Not being able to get past something can also be read as him saying, I can't or won't respect myself if I reconcile with her. If this is the case, then he has to divorce you in order to restore his self respect.

Divorce can lead to the retun of his respect and dignity, and thereby open a pathway to reconsidering you once again. So, prioritize his recovery and provide him with what he needs to heal and if his heart is softened, you may still have a chance after the divorce.

Learn from this and be better in your next relationship.

Don’t have hope to re-marry your BH….let that poor guy go find someone who he can trust.

The pain will wear off with time and you will have new tools of awarness and compassion, that you lacked in the past. Walk through the dark days step by step. One day you will find the light and deeper meaning than you could imagine before.

You have every right to feel whatever feelings are coming up for you, regardless of why you're feeling them. I'm so sorry that you're hurting.

You certainly seem remorseful based on everything you've posted. While this is devastating, that doesn't mean the end completely. Hopefully you can still be a positive force in his life.

And keep going with your IC. The end of the marriage doesn't mean this isn't something you should stop pursuing.
I just want to encourage you to continue to work on yourself and to not take this not-unexpected turn of events as the end of everything. You'll recover, and he will recover.

Stay strong.

[This message edited by 1994 at 7:41 PM, Friday, November 3rd]

I'm sorry that you are hurting. You have the right to grieve this. I hope you have real life support.

I've read other Wayward's here who displayed genuine remorse and did the work and very much wanted to reconcile, but ultimately, their spouses could not.

The ones I'm thinking of were heartbroken, just like you, but eventually moved on and last I read them, are living happy, healthy lives.

That's your aim. A happy, healthy life. That is completely within your reach. Give it time.

Hi LostAndHoping. Ive been following your posts since you were posting as JustPlainLost.

I want to say that Im sorry for your loss. For the loss of the marriage. The loss of love. The loss of the pair bond. The loss of your Husband. The loss of your future together. Regardless of the cause of the loss, the trauma and pain are, Im sure, very great and very real. If you look at the Holmes-Rehe stress analysis, divorce and infidelity are right there with the death of a spouse as to trauma/stress impact.

Should your BH continue on the course to formally sever your legal bond via the divorce process, take considerable time to grieve this loss. You said:

I know many will say I have no right to be heart broken seeing how I’m the one who did this in the first place. But I am truly devastated right now.

I am not one who would say you have no right to feel heartbroken. In fact, I believe that the level of your heartbrokenness is commensurate with the level of the ownership you are taking for the cause of this devestation. So, grieve. Grieve all of it for as long as you need to as you start to piece your life back together.

As to him, I honestly relate to this:

in the course of his own therapy he says he’s come to the realization that the betrayal is just too much for him to overcome and he doesn’t think he’d ever be able to fully trust me again.

My mistake was to not take the strong decisive action that he is taking due to the therapy-facilitated-clarity that this betrayal is most probably insurmountable for him. I mucked around in a miserable no-mans land of indecision for years. It was awful.

Gently, sometimes decisive action to divorce is, in the grand scope of things, a mercy (admitedly hard to see right now for you, Im sure).

To this:

I’m just looking at what seems like an empty future with no bright days ahead.

I say what my therapist told me so many times, "Feel your feelings, but feelings are not fact." You can have a full future with bright days ahead and I have an inkling that the probability of a full future and bright(er) days is dependent, in part, on how you handle the immediate future.

I cant remember if youve mentioned whether or not you journal, but if not, may I suggest you do so and write it all down while its fresh? When you ruminate, and you will, annotate your recollections with new reflections and personal revelations. In this way, along with good therapy, you can grow from this in a positive, healthy way.

Some have said that your BH may yet change his mind and return to you. While not impossible, based on what youve posted, I believe it is improbable. I think he is now determined to strike out in an all-new direction while divesting himself of the hurt & trauma of this betrayal. Hes not running away. Hes making a new start. There is a difference.

I hope that you too will make your own new start.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 12:14 PM, Tuesday, November 7th]

LostandHoping, I’m sorry you are going down this path. As a BS who is full of empathy I can be sympathetic to your pain. I route for a happy ending for any couple who has to deal with infidelity. At least you have been putting in the work. My WW just wants to rugsweep and put it behind her. She won’t give me a timeline, she is not very empathetic to what I deal with, and she’s not working on herself. I can relate to your husbands desire to end the marriage. Had I taken that path I’d have saved myself over 2-1/2 years of torment, but I keep hoping the future will work out for us. I can’t remember how long you said it’s been since d day but if it hasn’t been that long, he may eventually, once through the most traumatic part of this, show signs of wanting to save the relationship. That being said, don’t be afraid to accept that it may be over. I can only imagine that the relationship ending wasn’t a thought during the affair for most wayward spouses, the simple fact that you went down that path means you have to accept that that result may very likely be what happens. None of us are perfect, but we all have to answer for our actions.

I'm so sorry, LAH. I had such high hopes for you and your H. It's heartbreaking when the tools are there to rebuild but the wounds make them too heavy to carry.

Even though your marriage is ending, please know that your future is still unwritten and has so much potential. As grateful as I am to be reconciling, the one thing I envy single FWS is their clean slate. You can find love again and be loved without any history of betrayal between you. The wisdom you've gained will enrich the relationships in your life, romantic or otherwise.

I'm sure it's hard to focus on "someday" when your hopes and your world feel like they're ending. I'm looking forward to the day when I hear you've found your new beginning, one that's worthy of the person you've worked hard to become.

Hi there LostAndHoping,

I don't post much here anymore but I still read almost every day and I've been following your story. Although you aren't getting the outcome you wanted, I hope you don't give up on you. The aftermath of infidelity, whether you reconcile or divorce, is a kind of crucible. With a real crucible we put in different materials, apply intense heat, and some transformation happens to the contents. It's uncomfortable as hell but staying in the crucible when it gets hard is the only path to transformation. The hope of reconciliation can be a powerful motivation for staying in the crucible and when that hope is eliminated by the BS deciding the infidelity was just a deal breaker for them, it can be tempting to just jump out and stop the work on ourselves. Don't. Whatever your why is, finding those broken thought processes and taking active steps to change them is absolutely 1000% worth it. It will make you a better person to be in relationship for everyone you care about now and those you will meet in the future. Your marriage may not be salvageable, but you definitely are.

Proceed with conviction and valor. Strength and healing to you from a fellow EvolvingSoul.

LostAndHoping:

Please read EvolvingSoul post a few times more - She is correct in that you must change yourself - your thinking - your decision making process - or your ability to control urges. (!!)

Something you should consider and this is hard while your heart hurts, your stomach churns and that pain in your chest is so omnipresent: Why did you give in to the desire to cheat?

What I mean is - why didn't you sense the pain you would bring about by starting/having an affair? You have to figure out why you decided to behave with supreme disrespect to your marriage vows. And then also inflict the most supreme hurt on your husband.

You may want to think over your integrity. - Someone, somewhere made the statement: "Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking."

I hazard the guess that everyone at some place in their life wants to submit to their desire (potato chips? Ice cream? alcohol?)
But most "everyone" will weigh the cost of indulgence against the reward. Ya, I would *love* to quaff a dozen pints - but the next day I won't remember most of the night, or what I did or said to who. And to be sure, only another drunk "appreciates" a drunk.
Even so - many drunks still have some things they won't do. So I long ago judged the self-indulgence was a big negative and quit imbibing more than two on a given day. So it is with you. For some - that means zero alcohol drinks!

You have "quaffed the pints" and suffered consequences. Now, you must teach yourself to never "over-indulge" again and also figure out what leads to the situation in which your better judgement gets overrun by your desire for -

Another thought: Think over your marriage and all the things that came to be when you tied the knot. Does husband have habits then annoy the hell out of you? Like leaving dirty socks laying around? Pissing on the toilet seat? Speeding and tailgating while driving? Chewing with his mouth open - you get the idea? It is possible that after some time you will realize that maybe the permanent separation is better for you.

We all want to hang on to what is familiar and "comfortable" until we find something that seems to be MORE comfortable. Or we think we see a better reward for our future with a change.

Your experience is - in the scope of a lifetime - recent and short. In time you will ruminate a whole lot and your assessment of what you did and how you got into the activity will change and so will your husband. He will also change what and how he thinks of the merde panini you served him.

Fix yourself - and - if you find you really do want him - take time and work to show you are really the person a good spouse deserves to have. Right now (according to your posts) he isn't of the persuasion that you are worth the risk of another heartbreak. He will learn to live with what you have done. In time he may find that you are still the best choice available for him.

You must prepare for him to find other women with which to spend his time . . . -

After he does some "fun" with others, he may come to believe you are worth another gamble.

Don't give up on yourself.

MS Lost

Suggestion - on your profile - enable private message

there are some things that could be related to you but are not kosher with posting rules

Many folks have benefited from one-on-one conversations and also - typing out replies to inquirers helps your thinking processes.

Note also that you can ignore stuff - and/or report anyone who violates the posting rules.

L&H,

My BS has often communicated a desire to divorce, but two years later she is still showing me grace and mercy as I rebuild the broken person that I was.

I think that the language

he couldn’t forgive me. He couldn’t move past the betrayal.

is interesting.

The research that I have looked at says that the cost of unforgiveness to the person who has been wronged indicates that they will experience the emotional pain of anger, hate, hurt, resentment and bitterness. The resilience centre website in australia has some other stuff on forgiveness as well.

another thing i pulled from another site says "to forgive is the ability to pardon an offense without holding resentment. The emphasis in this definition for the purpose of understanding why we need to forgive is on the idea of "holding resentment." Resentment is a chronic state. In other words, we feel it continuously. An emotion such as anger is meant to be felt for short periods to help us process and resolve a situation. However, when we experience anger over prolonged periods of time, our body goes through harmful physiological changes. In particular, high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, will be released in an attempt to cope with the stress. However, when cortisol is released continuously over time it will contribute to health problems including heart disease. Therefore, forgiveness is important because it takes a toll on our bodies to hold resentment."

I like this view on resentment because when we place it with how we process grief then being stuck in grief it makes sense. ie. if I dont process grief well and typically get stuck at anger then I will look to retaliate towards the attacker.

when i think about this a bit deeper as an US the logic goes something like i resented my wife for x, y and z because i thought something was missing from our relationship. I didnt have a good way of processing that loss and allowed by resentment to grow until I acted out in horrible ways - buts thats not the point of where you are at.

so I continue to push forward with hopes of reconciliation because my view is that its not over until its over. I have a Christian faith so I pray and do the work for a miracle in me, and pray for god to help her do her healing work and for the miracle of reconciliation in her - and all for god's glory - not my own or hers.

towards healing for all!

OP and others are missing something fundamental: her BH could forgive and still end the M. I don’t understand why everyone conflates forgiveness with R. Those are two different things.

I don’t understand why everyone conflates forgiveness with R. Those are two different things.

I am not sure you meant it the way it reads, but I disagree with the words. While you can have a divorce and forgive, you can't reconcile without forgiveness. Forgiveness is an element in reconciliation. So, they are conflated.

I think you meant that "can't forgive" is overused as the reason and not the actual reason, usually the betrayal itself. I can't tell from what OP wrote if that was the case. But considering they talked it through, I don't think it was used as a catchall phrase.

[This message edited by NeverWillAgain at 10:23 AM, Tuesday, November 14th]

LostAndHoping

Being a moral person is something people have been battling with since the beginning. Doing "right" has always been a challenge, often because what is "right" or "correct" can change or vary between time, societies, cultures, and such.

We can agree that for those posting on this site we do have a common moral issue, and that is fidelity. I’m guessing that you know you did wrong by having your affair and that you are wondering why you did it and feeling extreme shame over having had an affair.

Well… that’s positive. Shame and guilt can be the building blocks for moral and character improvement. If viewed correctly you can look back and reflect on why you did what you did and why you allowed yourself to go past a marker most people have that stops them. Like most people won’t reach into the cash-register simply because it’s open, or most people would let the person ahead know they dropped their wallet. Most people have a moral line-in-the-sand and won’t go over it. Why sand? Because you CAN adjust the line in accordance with your ethics, morals and knowledge.

Now – at some point in your life you moved your moral line, so you decided that breaking the fundamental expectation your husband had for fidelity was fine. Of course, you never expected him to know, but the DECISION to cross that line was 100% yours.

I think it’s a KEY element in personal recovery and growth to acknowledge this. YOU decided, YOU did. Nobody forced you; you could have reached another decision at any time. By acknowledging this and by evaluating your shame, pain, and guilt… you can decide if this was a good decision or a bad one, one that makes you feel good and one that you might repeat, or something you need to learn from and avoid.

I personally don’t know of a single person that has been 100% moral and correct all their lives. The closest possibly being religious leaders like Jesus, but then we don’t know if he stole a cookie from Mary or tossed a rock at a cat in his childhood. Heck… the people I tend to respect the most are the ones that have dipped their toes in the seas of Hell and come back with no wish to repeat that experience. These tend to be people that realize that their actions are choices – decisions – and that you can choose/decide to live by your morals and standards.

When I look at your older posts, I see a large number are about how others see you. The shame of being frowned upon by others and judged by others. If this is the REAL cause of your pain, then all you need to do is be more careful in your NEXT affair. Hide it better, be discreet…

The pain – the judgement – the guilt… it needs to be for what you did and not for being caught. It needs to be internal.

When you have that THEN YOU can change. YOU can decide what you want to do and will do in the future. YOU can become a better person. What others think… well… it is relevant, but it’s not what you base YOUR recovery on. If you become a better version of yourself and keep that version, then over time if his sister still thinks you are a tramp is more her issue than yours.

Now – your marriage… Well… to me it sounds like its been toxic for some time.

This doesn’t justify your affair. But nor does your affair justify his affair. You can call it "revenge affair" but it’s still an affair. He didn’t have the affair to hurt you – not anymore than you had yours to hurt him. You both just had affair because you DECIDED you could.

Has he filed? Is the process in place? Has it started? Has one of you left the family home? Have you both got attorneys?

Sometimes people claim they want divorce but don’t do anything about it. You don’t ask for d – you DO divorce. Big difference. When someone asks but doesn’t do… sometimes it’s a cry for change rather than divorce.

LAH – definitely be hard on yourself, but be so for the right reason. THIS marriage might be over. What is clear is that the only way you MIGHT change that is by changing yourself, and the only way you can do so successfully is by changing into something YOU are happy with. That might be a woman that acknowledges her past and her past transgressions, but still demands the respect due to her from her spouse. Be it now or eventually. If he truthfully tells you he can never give you that… then don’t accept the compromise of a bad marriage.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 10:29 AM, Tuesday, November 14th]

you can't reconcile without forgiveness

I’d encourage you to read HellFire’s post in General about this very topic. In her view, you are wrong, and she’s a living example.

I did. I won't go into HellFire's post though. A true reconciliation allows for intimacy and vulnerability. How do you achieve those goals which are key to a true happy and intimate marriage while carrying a grudge or an edge from being betrayed? I've had that marriage and not due to infidelity, but abuse. I did exactly the same things. I would submit, you can stay married and survive. But, forgiving allows the betrayed to heal. It's actually not for the WS, but the BS. I don't know how you can leave that out and achieve true reconciliation. As our marriage counselor said: "forgiveness is the final step in reconciliation."

Here is what Psychology Today says about forgiveness: "It’s actually remembering differently. While lack of forgiveness is remembering something with an edge or a grudge or a sense of injustice, forgiveness means remembering it more benignly, with compassion. It involves some purpose of moving ahead, rather than just being stuck in the past." Those thoughts will still visit, just won't have anywhere to stay.

Many things in a long term marriage don't get mentioned on this forum. Like I said, I've had to forgive my wife for things as bad as infidelity and she had to forgive me for my infidelity. My affair was, in a strange way, a revenge affair. Instead of divorcing her, I chose to have an affair. Just stupid in so many ways. Reconciling was not easy and we each had to do the work. But, we can now be intimate in thought with each other and that is huge. I trust and seek her opinion and she does the same with me. We started down this path 12 yrs ago (3 yrs post affair), and it has continually grown. The last 5-7 have been awesome. The best in our 42+ yrs. Our marriage would not be this way unless we both forgave each other.

You have been on quite a roller coaster. As many here have alluded to, it’s not over until it’s over. Your BS has seemed to have changed his mind several times, and still might.

I’m going to write here under the premise that it is over, but like I said, not convinced it really is.

I was a BS that tortured myself. On the one hand, deep down I knew for me it was over, yet I saw her trying so hard and also deep down I loved her. The decision was agonizing for me. She reminds me a little of you. A good person who did a terrible thing. I knew that, yet the terrible thing for me was something that I could never get past. I’m sure he isn’t feeling great about his decision, but it’s probably the right one for him. You seemed to have done mostly the right things, yet sometimes that just isn’t enough. At s9me point you will have to come to terms with the fact that your infidelity cost you the marriage, and to learn from it. Like I said, you seem like a good person who hopefully can bounce back from this.

One of my biggest regrets in this whole thing has been the destruction of my EX’s whole life, but it didn’t have to be that way. She is really well off financially, has my daughters who have stood by her, yet she let herself go to crap. Let go of her friends and hobbies, gained weight, and too many nights sucking from a wine bottle.

Learn from her. It will be tough for awhile, but it doesn’t mean the end of your life. Embrace those close to you, get to the gym, take walks in beautiful places. Reflect on your mistakes, but don’t let them drown you in despair.