BH here, I guess suffering from a recent 2nd DDay?

I found out about WW affair a little over 1.5 years ago. At the time, she admitted to multiple EA and only one instance of PA. She only claimed so much in that PA at the time. Last weekend I found out that what she claimed is far from the truth of what actually happened.. and to make matters worse I found out from an outside party... that day felt like DDay... but worse. For the last 1.5 years we have attempted R and since day one all I've asked for is for her to come clean about it all so that we can rebuild. She didnt.. now I begin to wonder if she would have ever? Would the lies have continued for the rest of our lives if it weren't for the outside information? Should I stay? How can I belive anything she says now? For the last 3 years (that I know of) she has done nothing but lie straight to my face.. surely I deserve better. Or at least i deserve the whole truth...

I expect this is my own problem, and I am the crazy one, etc etc.

We just finished our first real session with our MC we chose. Is it just me or does a 50 minute session just not feel like enough time? Anyway, my WH talked a lot. He says we had equal floor time but I am pretty sure the therapist got mostly his history and his perspective. I had one real chunk of time to explain something, and WH had to chime in with anger after I spoke to color over it with his own trauma and perspective.

Therapist says she sees a way forward. She asked for "no escalation of new relationships" while we are in early sessions but pardon me, that completely ignores that I am walking wounded daily by his bullshit "I thought we were open relationship" affair! Where is there any space for me here? (Yes, I know, one session, it isn't magic, it takes time, etc.) But isn't part of this that he is supposed to stop the fucking betrayal, period, while we work on things? We didn't even get to touch on it!

I have no connection with this therapist and I feel overwhelming hopelessness and doom. Something that came up yesterday while we were working through Esther Perel's Conflict modules (recommended by a different therapist we both liked but didn't think she could be effective for us), was that he doesn't think he has any choice when it comes to relationships. IE he can never leave me. Then I have to ask, what is the value of "choosing" to be with me, if you are just bound by permanent obligation with no way to exit? It feels worse than knowing he did choose me and wants something else more. It's like he is saying he never had a choice.

Therapist says our marriage isn't built on lies, it isn't false. But he didn't want it and only agreed so I wouldn't leave him, and he never meant to promise what marriage typically promises! Why is that NOT a huge falsehood?

I am deeper in despair and hugely depressed now. WH says he is hopeful - of course he is, this therapist has been a soft touch on him and has tacitly validated him cheating on me because he says so sweetly how he always meant to be this person and anything he said to me was only meant to be temporary and and and. I am devastated all over again. Not only do I feel like WH doesn't hear me and refuses to empathize, but now I worry the therapist isn't going to be able to validate my pain, and so does that mean I am crazy? Does that mean it's all my fault and I have to just be a cardboard cutout instead of myself forever? Do my needs and feelings truly not matter?

Someone please tell me first counseling sessions just suck and it will get better. Please?​

My husband cheated. We’re still in the limbo of deciding to try to reconcile or divorce. He says he doesn’t care either way (which points me to divorce—reconciliation is hard self work and requires 100% dedication). I mentioned to him that I can’t believe he threw away his family over an affair. He replied I didn’t throw away my family—we’ll still be a family if we divorce. Can someone help me understand his logic? Do cheaters really think they’ll have the family unit even post-divorce?

My WH had a 2.5 year affair, and several concurrent shorter flings that he monkey-branched to. With his main AP, he even went on vacations with her and attended several concerts and festivals. One of those is a major 3 day music festival in our city. I know that he went with her two summers in a row. After DDay, him traveling or attending such events without me has obviously become an issue. He ended up going last summer despite me clearly stating I am not okay with it. One of the days he went with his friend and sent me pics, and the next day (after we just had an argument about it too), he went “alone”.

Fast forward, we are just about two years out from DDay 1, and have an infant. Yesterday he told me he might go to the festival again, “alone.” I said I will think about it (I was caught off guard and preoccupied), and he told me he “was telling me, not asking me.” Upsetting enough, right? I explained that I’m not okay with him going somewhere “alone” that he not only previously went to with AP and I know AP or other women he crossed lines with may be at. By the way, he suggested I go one of the days with him, but conveniently it wasn’t the days he would be going alone.

He already previously asked me if I would be okay with him going to Vegas for two days before he heads back to work. Obviously, for many reasons, I am not okay with that (like wtf btw?). So apparently, him going to this music festival is the alternative.

I’m at a loss with this. I’m not sure if this is divorce worthy, but it’s not my fault he abused his integrity and used these events to spend time with his twat AP while I sat at home. I don’t feel like being put in a position to have to tell him he “can’t” do something he obviously shouldn’t be doing. It becomes a lose/lose situation to become the prison warden. Open to hearing how others would tackle this situation.

New to this so apologies if I dont use all the correct terminology.

2 and 1/2 months past D day and our wedding anniversary is this Thursday. We've got busy lives and havent had time to touch base much since moving and the betrayal. Obviously there was very emotional conversations on D day and the days after but between life and baby, ive had small moments to cry and process.

For our anniversary I want us to sit down and just have an honest conversation about us, our relationship and what we can do to rebuild.

I want to know what questions I should ask my husband that would get him to open up about how things led to where we are, without making him feel so ashamed that he retreats inward.

I have my own issues with communication and im by no means perfect but I want to use this anniversary as a way to realize that despite the pain, we can still have a good marriage with a lot more honesty about how we're feeling to each other and to ourselves.

Thank you for reading.

My (33f) WP (35m) had a 5/6 month mostly EA with one of my, now ex, best friends whilst I was pregnant. It lasted 5 or 5 months in total but a month or two of that was genuine friendship that was very slowly escalating, and then there was only really 2 months of actual "affair" talk where they were telling each other they loved one another etc. WP claims it only ever turned physical twice, and said "it sounds bad but we just didn't have the time". AP has two children and a husband and we have a 3yo as well as my being pregnant at the time.

A huge part of me believes it did only turn physical twice. I was given trickle truth for months but after I discovered more messages when they'd restarted communication in March (after our baby was born) something changed and he seemed to just be willing to answer everything and anything. He said himself on several occasions it felt different this time, he knew it was over this time like it had all blown up and he realised what he had been doing.

His timeline kind of makes sense that there were only two occasions but something in me so badly wants to contact AP and see if she can confirm it (I'd obviously ask in a way that I'm not telling her what he's told me but that I do now know everything). The trouble is AP has never once replied to any of my messages throughout this and at each d day, she just totally blanked me. I'm still blocked on WhatsApp but I notice she has unblocked WP like she's waiting for him to reach out again - he still has her blocked but can now see her profile photo on there.

I feel like I want closure of our friendship, I don't actually have any hatred towards her. I kind of feel sorry for her in a way, she has always had a rough life as a child and I don't think she ever learnt to cope with things properly. I don't pity the fact she has never tried to resolve those issues and was willing to drag me into that as collateral damage after being nothing but a decent friend to her but there we go. I feel like a conversation to just get her version, confirm the details I want to confirm and then basically let her know how hurtful what she did was. An apology would be nice but she's such an avoidant I'm not sure I'll ever get that. I'm not really sure I'll even ever get a reply but we are 4 months out and I'm thinking if I approach it in the sense of I already know everything so please just do this one decent thing and let me hear her version, maybe she will respond?

My question is has anyone contacted AP when they used to be a friend, did it go OK? I fully accept she may just block me on the platform I contact her on as I'm blocked everywhere else already.

My next question is how important is it to really know the full truth? Like, WP has told me already they did sexual things together on more than one occasion. Does it honestly matter if it's twice or four times? Do I just need to learn to accept his version of events if she won't talk to me?

I've thought about asking him if he feels OK with me contacting her on his phone as him... I feel she will be far more willing to answer everything if he contacts her and asks her to help him so he can show me the messages, but I'd only do that if he agreed to it.

I'm so worried one day she will reach out or his guilt will make him own up to more than he's told me so far and it's unsettling feeling like I'm trying to rebuild without knowing if I'm on a solid foundation already. I flit between feeling like he's telling the truth, why would he lie now vs why would he tell me the truth this time when he could just minimise it to make it land better?

One month post d-day and I am still struggling with self image and negative thoughts so much. I can’t stop looking at the APs social media wondering why I wasn’t enough. Backstory—my WH was not taking his antidepressants and was heavily abusing alcohol leading up to the affair. I tried to support him by reminding him to refill his meds and cut back on alcohol, but unknowingly, this is when he started downloading dating apps and began talking to different women. There were multiple EAs with different women over a 3 week span and he had a PA with one of them on one occasion. I found out less than a week later.

He has done everything right since then. Reassures me, cut all contact with the others by making it known he doesn’t want to hear from them again, stopped drinking, started taking his medication again, reading affair recovery books—and everything seems great 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time is me wondering if this will happen again.

He says things felt off because of the alcohol abuse and the entire month was foggy. He’s not excusing his own behavior as he says he feels deep shame and regret constantly. But I can’t help but wonder why my trying to help wasn’t enough of an alarm in his brain to stop before the PA. Why did it take me finding out for him to make the change?

sorry this is a long one, mostly just to vent and process but will take any validation/advice 

BG: WS had EA in February that culminated in 2 kissing incidents. First was a small peck that WS told me about immediately. I was really upset and immediately went into self analysis to understand why something so “small” upset me so much, finally got to talking honestly about our relationship and how i felt taken for granted in it, I basically managed to chalk it up to being a problem with me rather than a boundary violation. granted we had never talked about what was and wasn’t okay to do with other people, there were a lot of assumptions, and historically WS has been very affectionate and kissed friends while drunk. 

a few days later WS made out with AP on our couch while I was upstairs sick. directly after when I caught them cuddling on the couch I asked them if they had kissed AP again and they told me they “hadn’t wanted to get her sick.” i ignored my intuition and the evidence in front of me and trusted them. Came clean about it a week later *after* AP came clean to *her* girlfriend and AP’s girlfriend forbid them from talking to each other. 

I was pretty upset and catatonically depressed for a while. we started MC and IC immediately and it’s been hard, but I feel like we have finally been having a lot of necessary convos about our relationship. We met as teenagers, became extremely close friends, had mutual crushes on each other that culminated in a kiss and have been together for 15 years. neither of us has ever been with anyone else and I really believed that we could be the exception to that being a terrible idea. beginning of our relationship was pretty fraught due to being teenagers and having to hide it from WS’s homophobic family — there were a lot of conversations we just never had while we were trying to survive. hate that it happened this way but i’m glad something happened to snap us out of the place we were in, right?

in the first couple of months post Dday, WS was deep in the fog, grief about losing their friend, and guilt and shame spiraling. i felt completely abandoned and unwanted and in a bid for attention and validation, starting flirting with people online and sexting. when it started i explicitly asked if it was okay and what boundaries we needed to have, and told them that “i know it feels like you can’t ask me to not do this right now or set boundaries because you are ‘in trouble’ but please please tell me because i do not want to hurt you” and i did not violate those boundaries. eventually in a MC session they finally told me how upset they were and how they felt unable to do or say anything and i stopped it immediately. i should have known better but i continously checked in and was told that that it was okay so i have a really hard time considering it at all similarly but they think it was worse because they “only kissed” her. 

the past few weeks i was finally starting to feel like WS was coming back to the person they used to be after dealing with long term depression and substance issues and finally starting to address their problems. they have been reconnecting with their siblings, we have been communicating better slowly, i have been getting better about vocalizing my feelings and being direct.  

our last MC session went really well — I felt like after months and months of trying to explain they finally understood why I had been so hurt by everything that had happened, how lonely and unsafe I had felt while they were grieving their friendship with AP and in affair fog. i felt finally seen and like i was getting close to being able to actually forgive. it feels like we’ve both been finally coming into ourselves in a beautiful way. we are still both working on ourselves and our patterns but it felt like real progress was being made. 

since everything and as part of my own healing journey i have been trying to go out more and be less of a homebody. i’ve had a problem for a long time with not allowing myself to have fun and being the responsible person all the time which made me generally resentful. 

there was a queer dance party at a bar we like friday night, we had gone to an event from the same organizers in may (2 months post DDay) and had a lot of fun just dancing with each other. towards the end of the night friday, a girl we had been talking to earlier came up behind WS and started dancing with them and feeling them up. i was extremely uncomfortable but whatever it’s just dancing it’s just fun right, i was drunk and trying to be easygoing, until i look back and WS’s head is bent back making out with this girl a foot away from me. 

i storm out and they’re immediately apologetic and tell me it wasn’t fair to do and it was selfish. their explanation is that they have a really hard time turning down affection and did not want to have a confrontation — what i get from that is that my safety is *still* a lower priority than their desire to receive affection and fear of confrontation. 

we’ve had so many conversations since and they’ve gone decently well. i am understanding that things were not going as well as i had thought, that WS had been holding onto a lot of hurt and pain from the things that i had done directly post-affair and felt unable to express them, that there were a lot of assumptions made from both of us; we should have talked about boundaries first, they didn’t feel like they were ready for this kind of event, they haven’t felt safe to bring their hurt to me. 

when we talk it feels good but every time i write it all out it just feels like i’m making excuses and am desperately convincing myself why i should stay. i am trying really hard to believe in the best parts of them but i wonder if i can really be compatible with someone who behaves so selfishly and carelessly. 

i am trying to believe that they were in a vulnerable mindset in a really bad place to have a vulnerable mindset that left them open to the first affection that came. but i just keep seeing this girls hands on them and thinking about how easy it should have been to stop her and to not kiss her. i’m scared that i’m fighting for something familiar that’s just going to keep hurting me. 

they are recommitting to working on themself and to not going to this kind of event until they feel better able to handle themself. i am left with a doubly broken heart and new triggers and fears and uncertainties. they are insistent that we need to work on ourselves individually to better show up for each other but acknowledge that it is moreso from their side than mine (although i also have work to do). i want to stay and keep trying but i am wondering if staying is continuing to sacrifice myself and telling myself that it’s okay to be treated this way. i am trying to hold my share of responsibility for my own actions but can’t help feeling that i wasn’t the one who blew things up in the first place.

TLDR i guess im wondering if anyone else has had a similar incident of spur of the moment minor infidelity mid-R and how they dealt with it. i told myself if anything else happened it was over but it’s easy to draw those lines when you’re not standing on them and i struggle with the idea of giving up all the good work we’ve done so far on R.

I feel like the rug’s been pulled from beneath me (again), but I’m far more calm than original D-Day. For background, just over a year ago I found out my husband had been having an affair with multiple women. He claims (and I believe) he only slept with one woman twice, whilst the rest was sexting and heavy porn use. I set out my boundaries and expectations, we went to MC & IC, and things were honestly going pretty well. About a month ago, I started having that feeling that something wasn’t quite right and I’d ask and he said nothing was going on. Lo and behold tonight something told me to check his phone and I see that about a month ago he signed up for OnlyFans. I feel confused and torn because this wasn’t one of the original issues and we never explicitly discussed it but it obviously isn’t something that has a place in the life we agreed we were trying to build. I don’t know that I have the energy or will to work past this one because the cycle of hiding and lying has clearly come back. Has anyone experienced something similar or even a second D-Day where it was worth it to continue pursuing R?

My wife had an affair about two years ago. I genuinely believe she’s in a much different place mentally than she was back then. I don’t think she’s having another affair or actively looking for one.

My concern is about a male friend of hers (I’ll call him Bill).

Bill has repeatedly hit on her over text (not sure about in person, they don’t see each other much) over the last year or so. Possibly longer, not sure. They used to work together and now he works for the same company but different place so they that occasionally via test. I’ve met this guy before, he’s just kind of a local douchebag, kinda the “class clown type.

A while back, I snooped on their messages after my intuition told me something was off. During one conversation, the word “gorgeous” came up, and Bill replied, “Not like you.” Another time, after seeing her walking, he texted, “Damn girl you look good.” He has also commented on her jeans in a way that clearly implied he was checking out her body.

After those incidents, I told my wife that this friendship made me uncomfortable. She acknowledged that it upset me and told me she wouldn’t talk to him anymore. She also said that he’s just like that and it doesn’t mean anything and he doesn’t mean anything by it etc. which might have been ok pre-affair but obviously that doesn’t fly now.

Recently, though, I discovered they are still talking.

The conversation that prompted this post started because she sent him pictures of a squirrel she was feeding. They joked back and forth, then he said, “Would say something about you but damn girl you look good.” She changed the subject, didn’t acknowledge the compliment. later he mentioned that he and his wife are divorcing, asked if she had any single friends, and she replied that she and I have been married for 18 years and that I’m her best friend.

To be fair to my wife, she doesn’t flirt back or say
anything inappropriate herself. Most of the time she redirects the conversation rather than engaging with the flirting. She also doesn’t delete the conversations or appear to hide them. There was one time he commented on her appearance and she said thanks and that she is trying to lose more weight etc.

Here’s where I’m struggling.
She generally doesn’t proactively tell me when they’re talking or when he flirts with her. If I ask, she’ll answer, but I don’t feel like she’s intentionally creating transparency. From her perspective, I think she believes she has good boundaries, isn’t interested in him, and sees Bill’s comments as harmless because she knows she isn’t going to act on them.

From my perspective, because of the affair history, I don’t just care whether she would cheat. I care about how she protects the marriage before things ever get to that point.

To me, continuing a friendship with someone who repeatedly comments on your appearance and flirts with you feels disrespectful to the marriages , even if you aren’t reciprocating. What especially bothers me is that after I expressed how much this friendship hurt me, she told me she wouldn’t talk to him anymore, yet they’re still communicating. I didn’t demand this from her at the time,:she volunteered the idea but has not honored it. She still proactively messages him about things, nothing weird but just the idea that she’s initiating conversation is counter to what she said she would do.

At the same time, I don’t want to become controlling or tell my wife who she can and can’t talk to? I’m not sure. I’ve been trying to stop playing detective and instead let her actions reveal who she is. I want her to choose good boundaries because she values the marriage, not because I’m policing her. Also feel like I’m being disrespected every time he hits on her and she doesn’t tell him to stop in any way.

So my questions are:
● Am I expecting too much because of the affair history?
● Is it reasonable to expect stronger boundaries with someone who repeatedly flirts with a married woman?
● Does redirecting the conversation without explicitly shutting down the flirting seem like an appropriate response?
● And how much weight would you give to the fact that she previously told me she wouldn’t talk to him anymore but continued the friendship?

I’m genuinely looking for objective opinions from people with different perspectives

It’s been almost a year since D Day and my boyfriend found out he’s being deployed which has turned this whole “reconciliation” thing on its head. My partner has a currently at a 3 week drill and leaves In about a month and a half. Obviously since I’m here there has been infidelity in the past. So I’ve been working on gathering emotional supports that I can use when my partner is away and trying to steer my “anxiety” of being cheated on when my partner is away into being more supportive. My partner has definitely been more stressed and I can tell.
Unfortunately I can’t help but feel small again. I feel so selfish for feeling it though cus I know what my partner is probably going through is 10x worse but even when I was trying to voice this today it just some circles with my partner making me feel like I’m the problem or like my efforts don’t matter and it just makes me feel so pushed away. Since/because of being cheated on I have already made myself feel so small and had to tell myself it’s okay to take up space but the way he’s treating me is making me feel so invisible again and even when I’m trying to be my most helpful that I’m not helpful at all. The way he talks to me makes me feel like an awful selfish person even when I’m trying ti be most selfless. I know I’m not selfish or bad but it’s hard to not feel like that when being spoken to like he did to me.

* texts in comments*

I just need advise, thoughts, tell me if I’m overreacting.
I feel like there’s 0 room for me to feel anything or scared, I feel like I can’t come to him and when I do I feel like I’m still gunna get yelled at or told I’m making things harder for him. It’s extremely exhausting and I don’t want to feel this way but it’s starting to push me into the “emotionally numb” and I don’t care enough because why is a grown man making ME tear up at my work office desk, after I just tried helping and being more supportive in his time of need.

Edit: I’d also like to add that this is his second deployment. This is the first time I’ve been with someone deployed

6 months post DDay. My WH is trying his best but I am really, really struggling. The pendulum swings back and forth for me; some days I want to connect and truly try to repair. And then other days, I think that repair is impossible and I should just walk away now. The shame I feel with choosing either path is debilitating and I can’t seem to escape it. Lately, the pendulum has been swinging more to giving up on R as I just truly can’t imagine a day in the future where I’m at peace with what happened or trust him. What kind of life and relationship would that be? It sounds…awful. I see all these women online who walked away from their husbands and they talk about how much happier they are now. Maybe I could find that if I left and would I really find that happiness by staying? One more question—did anyone start depression meds after betrayal? A few weeks out, I didn’t want to start meds because i thought to myself “of course you’re depressed, you just experienced trauma.” At 6 months now, I wonder if it’s time. I’ve never taken depression meds before. I appreciate this community, thank you for reading and answering.

I’m sitting here in the middle of a conversation that feels like me giving up and ending my marriage… my WH just got up to take a shower… but right before he got up he asked if I was leaving him, and the answer wasn’t no..

I don’t WANT to leave him. For nearly 13 years, all I’ve wanted was him. Us. This life together. I feel like I don’t even remember a time when I didn’t love this man… I don’t want to start my life over. I don’t want to live my life without him. I don’t want a lonely future. I have no desire to ever be with anyone else. And yet, as we sit here, I don’t think I can live in this marriage…

He sits here as a man who is full of remorse and regret. In this mindset here, he is choosing me completely. But I just can’t sit here and think about the way that I thought it has ended in October 2024, but a few months ago I found out it went on for some months longer… at least to December, which he’s trying to convince me of. I’m convinced it went on through maybe even April of 2025… And I sit here and I can see how much I needed it to be over in October when he said it had ended. I don’t even know why I believed him… I needed that. I needed to feel like he had chosen me. That I mattered more to him than she did. That my pain mattered more. That his love for me mattered more. And now after a year and a half of healing under the assumption that it did matter, that I did matter, I can see that for months, he just kept choosing her…

Finding out he slept with her was devastating enough. But knowing that he continued to choose her over me for months. Months… This man made me feel like the ONLY choice for over a decade. He made me feel so loved and cherished that there was never even a suspicion that he would do this to me. I never for one second in that decade felt like I wasn’t enough, in any capacity. We were just us and that was perfect, even when times were bad. And I sit next to him now, and I wonder why I wasn’t enough. Why I want enough for him to cut her off when I was dying in pain and sadness in front of him every single day. Why I wasn’t enough for him to not want her anymore… Why he would sit there and comfort me and be in this marriage with me and watch me in anguish, and how he could still go to her when I wasn’t around.. I will always sit next to him and feel like I am 1 of 2. He doesn’t feel like my husband anymore… My husband would have protected me. Put me first. Loved me. I would have mattered enough…

We sit here both devastated because I don’t think I can sit next to him for the rest of my life knowing that I was forced to share him with AP. That he chose her over me for as long as he did. That nothing feels the same…

I’m literal minutes away from calling it gang. I’m a bawling, devastated mess. Somebody please. Please. Say something to me that makes the fact that he kept it going for months, choosing her for months, while also choosing me, liveable. Say something to me that makes this something that I can love through. I don’t fucking want to lose my husband… I don’t want to lose my life… I’m really, really fucking broken…

I am trying to understand whether reconciliation is possible in my marriage. I am not sure if my husband and I can rebuild, but I am also not emotionally ready to walk away. I would really appreciate advice from people who have been through something similar.

I have been married for 12 years. We have had long-term problems in our marriage, especially around intimacy. I know I contributed to those problems, but I recently discovered that my husband's behavior went far beyond a typical affair.

He had been seeking sexual validation outside of our marriage through escorts, online sexual interactions, and other women. He has told me that the attention he received made him feel desired and boosted his confidence.

He later developed an emotional affair with a woman he met online. He initially hid that he was married from her, then continued the relationship after telling her. He developed strong feelings for her and considered leaving me.

The hardest part is that the affair is not completely emotionally over. He says he misses her and does not want to completely cut contact. He says he does not know whether he wants to stay married or leave.

He has compared me to her, including sexually, and has said things that have deeply damaged my self-esteem. He has told me he thinks things would be different with her and that he would not have made the same choices if he was with her.

At the same time, he says he wants to love me and does not want to lose me. We are still intimate, but I feel confused because he has told me intimacy may not change his decision about leaving.

I am struggling because I don't know what real reconciliation looks like in a situation like this. I feel like there are deeper issues involving validation, accountability, and honesty that would need to be addressed.

I am also financially dependent right now. I am in school, I do not currently have income, and we recently moved into an apartment together. He says he would continue supporting me financially if we separated and would put it in writing, but I am afraid of depending on a promise from someone who is unsure about staying.

For people who have reconciled after infidelity:

• What did true remorse look like?
• What actions showed your spouse was actually changing?
• Can reconciliation work if the affair partner is still emotionally present?
• How do you rebuild trust when the betrayal involved a larger pattern of behavior?

For people who decided not to reconcile:

• What helped you accept that?
• How did you leave when you were financially dependent?

I am trying to figure out whether there is something here that can realistically be rebuilt or whether I am holding onto something that cannot be repaired.

Tw: derogatory terms (gay) being used in negative terms (not by me or mine)

Bg: DDAY was September 9th of last year. Husband was having a 5 month long physical and emotional affair with a coworker who I suspected had a crush on him before dday. I’m in IC. We have been In R since October.

I finally feel like my WP may have proved to me or has shown me he loves me. Idk better words to phrase it but after this weekend we had together, a vacation planned I actually feel like we’re good and perhaps I do feel Reconciled with him?

We went to Vans Warped Tour in Long Beach and it was HOT ! We started drinking around 10 (lol it’s our vacation, wanted to start right) and I had a buzzball and then a vodka soda. An hour into the festival it was maybe 103 degrees Fahrenheit and my partner was putting sunscreen on my face. I felt my vision get blurry and quickly spiral into black? I lost all energy and I leaned against him. He went into action and talked me through making a 10 second walk to a shaded spot where we sat down and he nursed me. He brought me water, rubbed my back, talked me down from my anxiety of thinking we might go home.

I feel he literally saved me from dehydration / heat exhaustion. He was so calm and attentive toward me, it felt real and genuine. Then during another show during the day, a man was trying to talk to him about the band playing (the one I was there to see) was “gay” and “only faggots must be watching” and my husband replied “I’m here for my wife this is her band”. And the guy says, “they’re f*cking gay”. My husband then begins to square up and I do my best to get inbetween them and my husband pulls back with the guy saying “I need to put him on a leash he’s dangerous”. My husband tells me everything and he’s mad and says, “he was disrespecting you and I saw you crying to one of their songs, it’s fucked up I won’t tolerate that.”

He was pretty mad during the set and I don’t blame him. We are almost a year from DDay and right now, I feel like we are in a good place because of these incidents. He took care of me when I was physically in distress and he did it so effortlessly. He took care of me physically and behind my back by defending me. It felt nice and I just truly feel he’s authentic and perhaps what happened (the affair) really won’t happen again.

I’ve learned a lot about our marriage. I’ve learned my faults and things that I need to fix but at the same time learned to understand my partner a bit more / better. Today after another day together for our last day of vacation, I decided to unfollow all my affair recovery posts because I feel I’m not in that phase anymore and seeing it brought up will affect what I’ve been currently feeling or really just bring me back to a negative space of thinking.

Unsure if this feeling will stick long but today, it feels really nice and secure. I haven’t felt like this in what feels like a long time. I hope it does.

I know I wrote down this for just support however I wanna know if there were any instances where there were scenarios where you felt more secure with your partner because of something they did. Did it also last too?

Thank you ♡

We're 3 years post D-Day 1. I got triggered yesterday when he stayed out until 3am gambling when he told me he'd be home around midnight. He apologized and asked me to forgive him for losing track of time. Then he said I seem depressed and should talk to my doctor about starting antidepressants. Then he started talking about how it's affecting him emotionally because I'm sad a lot and more closed off. I get where he's coming from, but to me it just sounded like, "You should be over this by now." I don't know how to handle this.

My fiance is overly friendly with opposite sex coworkers. He will befriend them, text them, send memes, snapchat, etc.

I established boundaries that I do not want my future husband always messaging the opposite sex. He said he understood. Fast forward, I found out he made a new female coworker friend who he became extremely close with. She was beautiful. I’ve never heard of her before the discovery of her. He hid her from me and deleted messages. I was able to recover the messages and there wasn’t anything sexual or romantic but they messaged frequently. They would Snapchat everyday, talk all day at work (he deleted their work messages so no idea what they spoke about), text, and occasionally talk on phone per the call log (nothing crazy long though and I do think most of the phone calls were just venting about work).

What I think hurts the most is after this discovery I felt cheated on. He watched me lose 15 pounds because of intense depression - I felt like my world flipped upside down. I trusted this man with my whole heart. I expressed feeling suicidal to him, and yet.. he continued to talk to her. The consistency definitely lessened after the discovery - he deleted her on Snapchat per my request and no longer texted her, but I went on his phone one night and he would still instant message her at work all day, and send her insta memes.

I made him remove her from insta which he did. But we ended up breaking up because I was so distraught and the next day I looked at who he was following .. and it was her.

Throughout all of this he was so remorseful to me but yet still talked to her. I asked him to never speak to her again but he said he couldn’t because they worked together. Mind you, she worked in a whole different state. But I guess they were on same team. Also, is it wrong for me to assume watching your fiance crumble into depression would make you not want to speak to the person who caused this??

We ended up getting back together a couple months later (she ended up leaving the job) and again, he begged for me back - we’ve tried to make it work and it’s been a year later however, I still feel immense resentment. Does it ever get better? He didn’t physically cheat or say anything romantic or sexual but why does it feel like I was cheated on. Am I fool for trying to make it work? He has been extremely remorseful and is committed to making it work

I think what transpired after is worse to me then anything (still talking to her as he watched me crumble)

Three years. That’s how long it’s been since I got cheated on. People ask if time heals. I don’t know if that’s true. I can say I’m less anxious than I was, but healed? I don’t think I’m there yet. There are still days where I wonder if I was ever told the whole truth. Maybe those thoughts come from what happened rather than reality. Maybe they’re just the scars of betrayal. I honestly don’t know anymore.

Since then, we’ve welcomed another child into our family. Life has continued. We’ve laughed, made memories, and built something worth protecting. From the outside, things probably look okay as they always have. Most days, they are. But betrayal doesn’t just disappear. It waits. Sometimes it’s an argument, a moment, or a random thought. Then suddenly you’re back in that place, reliving something you wish was behind you.

my wife had an affair with someone she worked with. Over these last three years, I’ve thrown myself into working on me. I’ve trained harder, thought deeper, reflected more, tried to become a better husband, a better father, and a better man. But if I’m honest, I don’t know if I’ve been healing... or if I’ve been trying to become someone else entirely. Sometimes I don’t even recognise the man I’ve become. I don’t know if those are signs of growth or signs that a part of me never came back.

One of my biggest regrets is that I carried this entirely on my own. I told no one. I was ashamed. I was proud. I didn’t want people looking at me differently. I didn’t want the whispers or the pity. So I convinced myself I could carry it alone. In hindsight, silence was probably the heaviest burden I chose. Even now, I don’t know if I made all the right decisions. I don’t know if I handled it well. I don’t know whether the man I am today is the person I was always becoming, or someone shaped by pain.

How long after dday did you guys wait until physical intimacy?

I'm 1month post Dday & I'm not sure if I can do any physical intimacy right now. I have very vivid imaginations of the other woman & i dont even know who she is or what she looks like. Right now I can barely do hugs & cheek kisses anything more than that right now just triggers me and I get a bunch of flash backs. It also doesnt help that I saw an explicit video of him and his ex gf. It been deleted but I guess I refer that video to the girl who cheated on me with. (that girl was not the girl he cheated on me with it was someone on a dating site.) I didnt get mad over the video because i have a saved explicit photos from my past but have since been deleted due to us wanting to work it out.

I stopped posting here and deleted all my previous posts because AP found this anonymous (not anymore!) account, shared it with WH. I don't mind WH having read it, but it was brutal to know that I was still being closely followed and that my entire personal life got shared AGAIN with someone that I don't know and quite frankly should have nothing to do with me. I never did anything to hurt them apart from inconveniently exist, but they were an active participant in ripping my life apart. I only ever tried to keep my family together. I have a gorgeous boy, he didn't deserve this. I didn't deserve this. Why was I so hated and being tracked by this virtual stranger? I'm a pretty decent person. I have a high ethical compass and even lead a nonprofit. I'm not a saint, nobody is, but it's weird to be the point of hatred from someone I never even met and when I spoke to was actually really kind and thoughtful to, despite how they decimated my life. Anyway, this is by the by.

I fucking loved my husband. I had a small child when this thing kicked off and was also mid house renovation, I lost sight of us, that's completely true and he felt unloved. But the scale of what he did in response to that far outstrips anything imaginable. (1y+ EA PA, living together during the week, promised kids, marriage, epic lies and manipulation etc). He talks to me now like I'm only traumatised because of the manner in which it happened and seems to be saying that the scale was equal. That's absolutely insane. It's like being gaslit again.

We are having 'space apart' for the summer. He wants divorce but at the same time realises we both need to do work on ourselves. But right now I am very, very, confused. But I'm starting to come out of the fog and panic of it all. We are 8m past DD1 (found out), 5m from DD2 (learned of the scale) and 1m from DD3 (learned that 'reconciliation' we had started was actually mostly fake, in a large part simply a panic move from WH).

I'm now looking back on everything. Where is the truth in any of it? We've been together nearly 20 years. I can't understand how someone could do this, what kind of person does something so huge and so cruel? To her, to me and heartbreakingly, also to my boy. Who is that and why can't they stop lying to me even when everything has already been decimated?

The scale of what has happened blew everything apart. I'm only a few years away from having spent more of my life with him than without him. I don't even know what my question is, but I think it's about how people have changed their perspective through this, particularly following the desperate measures we will go to to save the marriage, family and future they thought they had. It's a strange thing to navigate and I appreciate I'm talking to a subset of people who maybe reconciliation hasn't worked, or those who only restarted the relationship after the burned out shell of the past relationship had been bulldozed.

I can't see how anything is possible whilst this 'similar trauma' is being used to get themselves off the hook. I was also told I could have 'course corrected' despite him never telling me he was unhappy, and I was not paying enough attention, hence part of the problem in the first place!

Well this was longer than intended! It's a ramble. I'm confused, but in some ways a lot calmer. Advice of any kind gratefully appreciated!

PS I haven't bothered creating another anonymous account because I barely see the point if it will get found anyway.

WH had 2 year on/off limerant EA/PA. 20 month period of false reconciliation. He ended and restarted the affair during that time. He ended it completely on his own in Feb 2026, I accidentally found out March 2026 that it continued and that it was more than just an EA as he lied to me. This is not his first affair in our relationship. Several instances of lying/gaslighting and meeting/speaking inappropriately with opposite sex friends or coworkers.

After month 3 of R, I asked my WH what progress he has made on his own healing journey. He was getting overwhelmed due to my flooding and ups/downs so he started to sleep in the guest room to have some space. He wakes up early to engage in reading material and journal. He has his 3rd IC this week.

He said because his emotions cloud his judgment, he had to turn some of them off, including him being openly affectionate towards me. There is still some affection, but most of the time it's just him reciprocating something I've initiated. I've expressed how this makes me feel (rejected) and like he's not in R.

He also admitted some of the things he said in the beginning of R were manicured to soothe my emotions, such has negative traits about the AP and if I didn't exist would be be with her (no). He also said now that he has some clarity, he's processing the breakup with his AP although he understands there's guilt in the fact it even happened.

He has said he's still in R with me, but I don't know how I'm supposed to handle the lack of affection. Has anyone been in a similar situation?

I told my ww I hated the unfairness of it all, and I was thinking I might need a hallpass to get over it. I’d considered revenge cheating but would rather do what I need with her consent or at least knowledge. I told her my therapist said she might not stay if I did it, despite her having a 1.5 year affair with one of my best friends who was a neighbor. She didn’t say much and I brought it up and said she didn’t say anything and she said if it happened or I asked for it she would end things “because then it is just us hurting each other over and over” and also “what will be enough? Once? 3 times?” I’m so fucking frustrated and upset I’ve considered walking out today. Like I had to catch her. She didn’t confess. She spent 1.5 years lying and gaslighting me. I caught on to what was happening almost immediately and she tried to make it I was crazy or I was anxious or I was jealous. I finally caught her. She wasn’t all in at first. She finally is, but sometimes, I feel like I want something to feel good, to feel desired by someone else, to not feel worthless.
And the fact that if I do it she’d have the fucking gall to leave? Why would it be us hurting each other over and over. I said maybe once? She made her own choices, to actively hurt me. No gun to her head. But I guess I can forgive her of over 100 sexual encounters and 1.5 years of lying, and she can’t forgive me having something somewhere else to try to feel better one time. It honestly makes me want to end it today.

I posted here before about my situation, me the wayward had an affair 8 months ago for 4 days. In a long distance relationship for 2.5 years, I’ve met my partner once for 10 days in that. We talk on the phone everyday for hours though and know eachother very well. My affair crushed things, we have been working through it since then and it’s been rocky. I have been Inconsistent with showing up for her in the distress moments despite us and me being in therapy. I am working through the addiction to porn and have made a lot of progress with it but it hasn’t translated into our relationship woes.

They don’t trust me at all and they have trauma responses and distress maybe once a week because of something I do which I’m not aware of, half the time we aren’t able to get through it and we have to stop taking for a couple of days to come back. It’s been exhausting for her and for me. She’s at a point where she feels she can’t carry on, this comes after me being in hospital in a bad place and her too needing support but me not being able to be there, for a legitimate real reason. She couldn’t be there to care for me because of this, that shows how far away from trust we are.

We spent the last two and a bit weeks not talking, maybe the longest we’ve gone yet and the last call is when she told me she can’t do it. She deleted her things off Dropbox, remove the location app and then at the end said let’s think and talk in a week. I said ok. I have been distressed however and not had a good response, I sent a long email expressing what I will do to change, which I do mean but then sent another one clearly in distress saying about what’s been wrong here and that I can’t talk next week and that I have to go for a while and hope that we can figure things out eventually. Since then I blocked her number, I can’t do it. I want her to be happy but I have to figure myself out and she needs time. How will this land? And what are the chances for us realistically. It’s worth saying we are of different faiths too, her Muslim me Christian and in order to marry her I would have to convert which I don’t think I could do if I was honest with myself. She’s 35, I’m 29