I have been living with this trauma for over three months. My d-day was June 29th, when my husband told me that someone he had met on the internet had become "more than a friend". I feel crushed just writing those words. The pain is indescribable. I have a long narrative about what has happened. I just typed it all out and then erased it. The bottom line is - he just finally told me he broke off all contact with her. At first they were remaining in contact as friends but I told him that was unacceptable and had him watch the affair recovery video about that topic. He understood that so broke off all contact. I want to believe him. I don't know if he's doing this because I brought up legal action or if he wants to try to come back to me, or what. I have no idea. He acts very clinical about it all and hasn't really revealed much emotion, which is how our marriage has been and now I'm realizing what a huge problem that has been for years. I'm terrified that he broke off contact with her simply because he is scared of legal action, and really doesn't want to come back. And if he does decide he wants to come back, I'm not sure I want him back. I don't know what to do next..

My husband and I have been married for many years. I am truly disappointed that our marriage became routine and self-centered. I am quite ashamed that I became the unfaithful and brought such pain and heartache to my husband. Discovery has been very painful and now it’s where do we go next? I want very much to figure out the why but most importantly to help my husband feel he’s my priority, he is my everything, and I will do anything to help right this terrible wrong I have inflicted on him. Harboring Hope seems to incorporate the help we need. This would be such a tremendous blessing as we are retired and finances are more challenging than they used to be. I would be ever so grateful to be blessed by receiving this gift for our 40+year marriage.

I need help. My husband had an affair and there was a child born from it. We are budgeting for child support now but I’m still not sure if my husband is 100% on board with recovery work. I definitely need this for my own healing and for my 2 boys under the age of 3. I want them to have a healthy Mama again before all this happened. Especially since we cannot currently afford therapy for myself or for my husband. I want to move forward with my husband but if he doesn’t want to then I need to know how to move forward on my own. Especially since I don’t want any future relationships impacted by this trauma.

D day was June 4, 2022 even though I suspected but I had no proof. God woke me up in the night and literally the passcode to his phone came to my head. I sat on the bathroom floor for hours using my phone to screen shot the he texts. They literally sounded like teenagers. I teach high school and they sounded worse than them. I never cried and tried to stay calm. A lot has happened since then and I have as toxic the first several years of marriage but I changed. He didn’t accept that I changed and chose to shut me out but never tell me. I thought we were okay until the last year. It became clear he was having a midlife crisis. Our 15 year old and 18 year old knew something was wrong but we didn’t know what. They have since found out because they had suspected it but didn’t want to say anything. Fast forward a months- we are trying to heal but I feel alone. He did not confess to anyone but our children. I know he feels great shame as do I but I have no one to talk to. We have gone to counseling but he has resisted going back because of something the counselor said. We are both believers and do want to make it work. I’m trying very hard but I do feel so alone. My faith is what gets me through. Our kids are damaged and he believes hat he was doing wasn’t hurting them. I am trying to forgive and move forward but I often think I am sending my kids the wrong message but putting up with this. I have made it very clear what I need to feel safe and so far he is doing that. I have also made it clear that I will not be made a fool of again. I just need to feel like that I’m not the only one to go through this. I wish he would do the program for the unfaithful spouse but I don’t know if he will. I’m not patient and I know this takes time but it is so very hard. My dad was unfaithful and my husband didn’t know that when he started the affair but found out during. You’d think he would be convicted but if he was it was never enough to tell me. Anyway, there is too much to write and I am too tired.

Our d day was June 6 2022
I have made great strides in recovery from my husband of 26 years and my partner for 30 years betraying me with a one night stand. He says it’s the only one but I am not so sure he is being honest. I believe he is terrified to admit them if they are there because of how traumatic this discovery is even though I have told him I am still here and as painful as it may be,I can’t heal or truly move on properly until I am 100% certain.
I still have bad days, really bad days and I don’t know how to deal with this. I get triggered and he ridicules me for it because he thinks it’s ridiculous because we have more good days than bad and doesn’t understand. I am not faulting him for this Because truly, he’s never been one to for
emotions, he didn’t grow up in a family that talked things through together, it was each man for himself.
I want to continue my healing! I want to continue our healing! I want the better us, I need to know how to do this on my bad days! How do I find the horizon when the sun has blinded me?

Never would I thought I would be navigating these terrible waters of being a betrayed spouse. Yet I still hope. I love my husband no less which is only God in me helping me see him through His eyes. We are both broken. It comes in waves and I’m just ready to get to shore again. Yet I still hope.

I feel as if I'm on a rollercoaster and I can't get off. D-day was a month ago and it feels as if years have already passed. I am trying to stay strong for my one year old daughter, however I am truly struggling. My husband of 4 years (been together for more than 10) has done the unthinkable. I don't want to give up on my family, but I am struggling to find the hope and strength to get through each day. I am hoping to seek help from other betrayed spouses and gain support and comfort from their struggles as this is an incredibly lonely and confusing path to be on alone. I am grieving the loss of a once incredible relationship with my spouse and I don't know how to cope. I would sincerely appreciate the opportunity to join this class to begin rekindling marriage #2. Thank you.

My D-Day was this past June. After we were married, I discovered that my husband had a porn addition. When I confronted him, he said he couldn't be happy without it so I let it ride since we were still being intimate. Years later I discovered that he and his brother were going to strip clubs. When I confronted him and told him that if I found out that he touched any of those girls we were done. He convinced me that he was done with strip clubs.
Several years ago we stopped being intimate because he was having troubles because of his prostrate. He was trying to get help for it so I believed him. Then covid was hard for my husband and I as neither of us wanted to be vaxed. We feared we'd loose our jobs and my family disinvited me to any get togethers. My mother got covid but my vaxxed siblings were not available to take care of her, so I did. Praise the Lord she recovered but then got vaxxed which nearly killed her. She was hospitalized with a kidney and heart injury. This time I was banned from her. Needless to say, I was not happy go lucky through all that. This past April and May, my husband of 23 years started acting out of his normal and not coming home when he normally would. When we were home together he would lay on the couch and be all depressed. He let me think that his job was the cause. I began to suspect that something else was going on and confronted him. He said that he had settled when he had married me, that he was not sexually attracted to me and that his sexuallity was very important to him. He said that he needed to spend some time alone to "find himself." I asked if there was someone else and he said he was attracted to some people at work. When I asked who, he said it didn't matter. After thinking about it, he had been telling me about a new friend he had at work that he was trading dvds with. She was married and from China and hadn't seen many American movies. I suggested that we go out with her and her husband. He hadn't spoken of her in awhile. I asked him about her and then he confessed that he was having an emotional affair and he needed get to know her to see if he needed to be with her. Just before D-DAy the agency I was working for closed, but a new and better job dropped in my lap one week before he confessed his affair. There was a lot of waffling on my husbands part. On day three of my new job (June 22nd), I came home at lunch time and "she" was at my house. I walked in and told her to leave. I then had a conniption. That night my husband called me from his work. He said it was fate that I came home at lunch and made him see how sick this all was. He said he's quit his job so he wouldn't see her anymore. We got counseling from our pastor twice during this time. He was very hard on my husband. My pastor didn't give me much hope in my phone calls with him either. Also during this time my pastor suddenly quit our church and moved out of state with his family. We found out later that he had also had an emotional affair with a church member. My husband planned to retire from his job on July 1st. He planned to break it off with the AP because he wanted to work on our marriage. He didn't want to hurt her but I still hadn't heard a sincere apology for how he had hurt me. He told me that he had broken it off with her on July 1st. Around July 4th the AP got in a fight with another coworker and was suspended, soon after she was fired. (I had been asking the Lord to remove her from his shift, but He totally removed her. PTL!) I had been telling my husband that we still needed help, we needed counseling, but he kept putting it off. We struggled along for several weeks. It was hard to know how to act around my husband. I felt that I needed to please him or he'd go back to the AP. Then on Aug. 7th I found a receipt from a local restaurant in his car from July 19th at a time I was at work. I confronted him. He said that he had indeed been with the AP to give her advice on how to get another job. I insisted that he get us help. We ended up getting marriage counseling for his "emotional" affair. We had 5 free counseling sessions provided by his benefits at his job. These sessions were focused on helping us to reconnect as a couple. The first went very well and my husband later told me that I meant a lot to him and he was excited at the prospect of our relationship being stronger as we were able to get over all this. The second went alright but by the third my husband said he wasn't getting anything out of it and how many more did we need to go to. I told him that I still needed help and that I didn't think our marriage was out of the woods. He asked me if I wanted to split up to which I answered no. At the third session in early October, we spoke to the counselor regarding this. She felt that because we were still speaking to each other that we were doing well. She said that we were each experienced hurt in different ways and that my husband was not needing more counseling. I was having anxiety because I am an emotional reasoner. She felt that if I got a handle on my anxiety that our marriage would continue to improve. It has still been very awkward being around each other at times. We spend all our free time together, bicycling (we are both avid cyclist), going on weekend trips, seeing live music and visiting with friends. I haven't seen any evidence of the AP since August. I want to forgive and move on. I love my husband more than anyone on this planet but have trouble trusting him as I still suspect he has a secret life I don't know about. He doesn't seem willing to get further help or even discuss the affair. Lately, I have felt like he is pulling away but other times not. I'm just very confused and feel stuck in how to move forward. I need help for myself. In reading the comments left by others I feel like Harboring Hope would help me to heal.

I am committed to doing the work to save my marriage, heal myself, and help my husband heal after an affair 3.5 years ago that devastated our family. However, I recognize that in need help. The tools, resources, and community Hope for Healing provides will help me continue to work hard to do the next right thing every day.

I'm holding onto hope for my marriage, but need help. It feels like I will never truly know the man that I married, even after 3 beautiful kids 6 and under, 10 years of marriage, and sharing my deepest insecurities and downfalls in life. I thought I knew him, but our entire marriage has been full of lies, secrets, selfishness, and deception. I want to believe that he will show up, get help, and make the changes in himself in order to rebuild trust, but it's so hard to hold onto that hope when the hurt is so deep. And I am a different mom and person bc of it. The anger is deep. I'm so mad at him for turning me into this person after I gave up so much for him out of love and support.

I am almost a year into this process of trying to heal from my husbands cheating. I’ve never cried so much in my life. We are trying to restore our marriage and I didn’t think something would be so hard as this has been. My emotions are up and down from moment to moment and most days I don’t know how I get through them. He is willing to talk and listen. He is the one who wants to save the marriage so I am trying to hang in there. I would have walked away as it just seems easier to not deal with any of it. I don’t want to quit but I am still in so much pain that I can’t see how I can move forward and accept this.

I will be praying that I can win the drawing for Harboring Hope, I feel like I have very little hope left. My name is Leah, my husband and I have been married for 15 years. I naively thought we had a near perfect marriage until a little over a year ago.
In spring 2021 I noticed that my husband seemed to be behaving differently than I was use to. I chalked it up to working opposite shifts and not having enough time together. I was sent into a panic though, after discovering a glass rose that was purchased on our Amazon account and mailed to his brother’s house. He lied to me about the rose a few times, and his explanation didn’t make sense.
The truth about the rose was that he had given it to his ex-girlfriend’s (from 20 years ago) mother along with a letter. The letter was mostly apologetic for the way he had treated the ex when they had dated. However, it contained numerous lies about our marriage and his life over the past 20 years. It also stated that he never got over her, that he regretted they hadn’t ended up together, and that he had settled for me. The rose was stated to be a replacement for one that had been broken while they were dating that initially was said to represent his undying love for her.
After being confronted with the letter, my husband said he did it because his therapist said he needed closure from that time period in his life. I have not been able to understand why he would lie about it to me, keep it a secret, or why the letter seemed to be looking to open a window, instead of closing a door.
The other issue with the situation is that next to the letter was a poem that he didn’t send. The poem said he didn’t want to love anyone else, that he didn’t care if he never loved again, and that his heart aches when he wakes up and realizes she isn’t his, and when he goes to bed wishing he could tell her about his day. It goes on in that manner until the end. Also, he has kept contact with the parents secretly this whole time, and also contacted the ex through Facebook. She is married with three children, she hasn’t responded to him inappropriately, and claims she hasn’t read the letter and will never do so. Obviously though, there is something wrong in my marriage, but my husband says there’s nothing wrong and everything is fine.
Along side the situation with his ex, he had a stint of text messages with a female coworker that to me feel inappropriate, but he claims were nothing also. He had always told me that he couldn’t stand that particular coworker, so it was shocking to see conversations that suggested the exact opposite.
Altogether, there isn’t any actual evidence of an affair, but after being lied to, and kept in the dark about things, I feel incredibly betrayed. My husband continues to act like there is nothing wrong, but behaves very distant the majority of the time. I have felt lost, hurt, and incredibly confused for over a year now. It is seeping into every area of my life. I truly need help coping with this, and need to find hope for my future. Thank you in advance if I win.

We have been married for almost 25 years, and our D-Day was on our anniversary 2 years ago. I had suspected for many years and different women, and approached my husband who denied everything and made me believe I was seeing things. He admitted to stepping out as early as 6 months into our marriage. Only 1 of the women was unknown to me because she wasn’t one that frequented our circle of friends/family. Two of these women were church sisters. The most recent we actually extended hospitality to her and her husband when they fell upon hard times and allowed them to stay with us for a while. They were church friends and her and my husband were youth ministry leaders together. It’s been over 2 years since D-day and my husband has turned his life around, but the trust is so slow to rebuild, and I find myself seeing him as the person who hurt me, and not who he is today. It’s like I think if its too good to be true, then it must be too good to be true. I thought I was moving forward, but I know deep down I still have so much anger towards him, the other woman (women), and also myself. Sometimes I feel like punching the walls…and sometimes i actually do when no one is around. I try to stay current, but sometimes it so hard when I feel my husband is being what I consider judgmental about my thoughts and my struggles when I feel brave enough to share them with him. He thinks he’s helping me sort through things, but I usually just end up feeling bad for the things that I am thinking (especially when my husband tries to remind me of what Christ would do, and what true forgiveness looks like based on what Christ did for us). I am in therapy. My husband doesn’t think he needs therapy and that makes me nervous. He will sit in on one of my sessions if I ask him to, but no therapy for himself. When we talk, if there is something I say that he does not agree with, he tells me to write it down and check with my therapist at my next meeting so she can help me process that what I am saying is not correct. He says he’s fully aware of himself and his thoughts, that’s why he doesn’t need therapy. I feel so alone in this. I have only told my sister and my closest friend. It’s hard to pretend everything is ok. I pretend at home, around family, at church ( which it is a struggle to go to that church because I feel so stupid, and wonder how many people knew and greeted me each week with a hug and sometimes even a kiss).We still end up at times at the same events that the affair partner and her husband attend because of our church circles, and its very difficult for me to be in those spaces. I think one of the hardest parts is getting past the deceit for all those years, and of how little value I was to my husband…how he treated me and allowed those women to disrespect me. I am also mad at myself for staying in the marriage for so long knowing he was up to no good, but staying to protect my kids form having to grow up in a broken home. I know I need community and I need help to process and release these feelings and thoughts that I have. I do want our marriage to work, and he says and shows he’s committed to the work of restoring our marriage. I don't want to feel this way anymore…hopeless, broken, ashamed, stupid, not valuable. I want to be hopeful, encouraged. It’s difficult when the people you confide in have never experienced this type of trauma. They mean well, but the can’t really help you navigate something like this.

My husband of 32 years admitted to having an affair with a co-worker that spanned roughly 2 years, though they have kept in touch for another 5 years after she stopped working with him. My husband is willing to do whatever work is necessary, and has taken the Hope for Healing course. Along the way, it has come to light that he also had an addiction to porn that began in his early teens until D day. I truly love him, and I'm so grateful that he is getting help. Now I feel it is time for me to find support from the community of other betrayed spouses. In spite of his efforts, I still live in constant fear that it will happen again. Sometimes I start to feel okay, and then find myself feeling a wreck again.

I found out about my husband‘s affair this summer after months of telling him that his coworker was actively pursuing him. He said he thought they were just friends and that if she ever came on-to him he would say no. But denial played a role here. He liked the attention she gave him. So one day shortly after we started marriage therapy she kissed him and he said that if he was getting blamed for it he may as well do it. I know there is so much more here than he has yet to admit to me and himself but I found him at a hotel a week later. So short lived-yes. Still devastating-Absolutely! He said she gave him a hotel key the day before at work. He doesn’t know why he went, that he sat in the parking lot wondering why he was there. But actions speak louder than words. He said he kept seeing my face, he couldn’t finish and realized after that he was in love with his wife. The damage is done however. She admitted to him in the hotel that she had been doing little things to get his attention for half a year. He said he was stunned. He thought it was all spontaneous. He realized to late that his wife was right. So fast forward to today and I have trouble sleeping, severe and light flooding episodes, have lost 50lbs and been diagnosed with broken heart syndrome. They still work together and she is actively pursuing him on and off. He is interviewing so we can move out of state. I have so much fear and distrust even though my husband is doing so much to rebuild our marriage. He also has very limited empathy and has moved on so he thinks I should just decide and do it too. It’s not that I’m not grateful that there isn’t any love lost with his AP it’s just that he made the life I live a mockery. The relationship we are building now is separate from our marriage before D-day. I wear my wedding band but not my engagement ring because the promises made with it were broken. I made vows not wishes so my wedding band remains. I am struggling and need to find “me” again. I have no family or friends here and have lost any joy I had found when we moved here a year ago. I want to go home. Everywhere I turn I see a reminder. I can’t drive anywhere near the place I caught him or her house. We meet for lunch to make time for each other without the kids. She has followed me to the bathroom at his office and is constantly creating situations where they have to work or do “business” stuff together. Thankfully he is open with me and has delegated one of his employees to handle her departments issues. But it doesn’t stop. I am emotionally being pulled in every direction and we are both as stressed as could be. It’s taking it’s toll. I need a support group to help redirect and take charge of this pain. I need to be present for my kids. But sometimes I am drowning. Either way I need help for me so that I can survive the coming months, holidays, move and ultimate blow up with her when she finds out we are moving. I also need the strength to work on my marriage. So be super mom or even just mom again, partner in working towards the future for our marriage, move coordinator-packer-seller-house finder-etc and myself. Check please.

Just a woman trying not to loose herself…

It's been 4 years since I found put my husband was cheating on me. He lied and manipulated me to stay with him and I did off and on for a period of 3 months. I finally filed for divorce when I found him in bed with her the day after Christmas. It's been 4 years and I have seen a therapist and done a lot of work but I am still hurting and looking for more help and direction on moving forward and healing more.

I'm really struggling in my decision to stay. None of it makes sense. I can't seem to explain it and since I can't seem to explain it, I struggle to talk about it. It took 3 ddays to get the full truth out. He's been unfaithful for just about our entire 10 year marriage. Sex workers, affair partner, phone calls to escorts even after he watched his words break me. 10 years of an alcohol and gambling addiction. Years of verbal and finacial abuse. And yet im still staying. There is no logic to explain. We have 4 kids and I am such a mess, I feel like the worst mother whos given them the most messed up version of marriage, yet they only know their dad has a drinking problem. I can't seem to figure out if I'm just sitting in the problem because I can't seem to let go of the man I thought I loved when I can hug and hold him and he's right there. Am I staying because I really can get through what feels like the impossible. Or am I staying because leaving seems to be the scary unknown that I may have to explain to others and staying allows me to sit in this misery of a lie requiring no explination. I'm surrounded by an endless supply of triggers. I can't watch most tv shows or movies without panick attacks, everytime he leaves the house my body wants to shake. I dont sleep well even with sleeping pills. He'll wake me up scared because of how bad I'm shaking. I can't even walk down the street without being triggered. I'm fake at work trying to cover up how I'm really feeling. On the outside we look like this happy family. On the inside I'm falling apart. He just lost his job for a DUI while driving his semi truck and made all the money. My job covers health care and few extra curriculars for the kids. I'm just standing around frozen while everything around me just crumbles. Somedays I wonder if I just wait to crumble too.

My wife approached me 9 months ago and gave me a laundry list of issues she had with me. She painted a picture of me that was unrecognizable. She had been spending time with a family friend who was helping us with some property - I had a few suspicions but largely trusted my wife. After receiving this letter, I had no proof but knew something was wrong. It enraged me with jealousy. She never admitted. I was unable to thoughtfully address her concerns and she denied. I finally convinced myself I was wrong, yet two months later she told me she wanted a divorce. Desperate heartbreak and efforts of reconciliation ensued on my part. She moved out 2 months later, under the pretext of needing space. Within one week, the affair was discovered. The house she moved into was co-signed by her lover. The reality of the many months of deception and pretext crashed down on me and our children. The result has been devastating. I immediately filed for divorce and attempted to reconcile at same time. Reconciliation failed and divorce proceeded. We are now divorcing and attempting to co-parent and have decent communication. I almost lost my job because of the mental paralysis and grief. I have accepted the reality of divorce. I am struggling with the loss of the person I loved for 24 years, the shared lives and memories. I struggle with understanding how any of this could happen to what appeared to me a good marriage and how I could have been blindsided by all this. I do not understand how one who loves her children so could choose such a scandalous exit. Mainly I want to heal and help my family heal in a thoughtful way. I am harboring hope for the future but also recognize that I need assistance to do that.

At the end of November, my husband confessed to having an affair with an old girlfriend that went on for nearly 2 years. She had flown to my hometown so they could rendezvous. They even went on some of his work trips together (work trips I wanted to go on!). While they did meet up for sex, mostly the relationship involved lots of illicit text messages, calls, emails and Facetiming. However, as the details of this affair came out and I asked more questions, he admitted to other affairs with women back in his hometown and here locally where I live. The timeline of his affairs can be traced back all the way to 2016 when he had unprotected sex with a prostitute. A prostitute arranged and paid for by a wayward sibling of mine. My hurt is so deep.

Some days I am fully trusting that God is working in my situation and I am able to open my mouth sing His praises through my storm, other days my chest and body hurts so badly, I want to pull the covers over my head and stay in bed. I have experienced so much betrayal and I know so many details, I am triggered by everything! The world feels like one huge trigger - music, words, songs, names. Every night I think about him sleeping with other women. I'm living in a nightmare. I have also started to become accusing, merciless and unforgiving toward innocent people in my life who make easily forgivable mistakes. I feel that I can trust no one, and I am starting to destroy relationships with people I do love and trust because I am distrusting, accusing and so so very quick to anger. I need so much help to heal and become whatever God wants me to become after all of this. I know He has a plan, and it isn't to become angry and bitter. I want flourish and to teach my children by example that God makes beauty from ashes. I cannot do this unless I get help for my pain. Thank you for this opportunity to win a scholarship.

I was bound in shame and guilt for my entire life. That shame drove me into sex and porn addiction which I finally overcame. My marriage is shattered and I want to
Finally tackle shame to get completely free

DDay was 8 weeks ago, and I still feel like I’m existing in a fog. My husband is not interested in anything Affair Recovery has to offer; on the contrary, he is in love with his affair partner, blames me for the affair, and threatens divorce almost daily. I am following a different program to try to save my marriage, and while it is helpful to that end, my trauma is not being addressed, causing me to swing wildly between hope for our marriage and devastation. It is a very lonely process, and I feel like I’m being lost amidst it all.

The pain of the infidelity and the crumbling of our life is unbearable. I pray to have the opportunity to walk alongside other women of faith and strength to begin healing my heart. Thank you.

13 years ago I had an affair with a co-worker. I ended the affair and dedicated my life to proving my dedication and love to my husband. Over the past 13 years he has never accepted love from me and continues to do things that make me pay for the affair. In May of this year I found out that he has been drinking for the past 2-3 years and hiding it. He is an alcoholic. He has been going to a counselor and has only had a few slip ups. On Thanksgiving I found out that he has been having an affair. I was devastated. I've give him my everything for 13 years that I don't even know who I am anymore. It's been a little over a month and I'm still completely lost. I want to find myself again and not relay on him for my happiness. He says he has ended the affair and is not drinking but his work means nothing to me right now. I want to find the confidence that was talked about in one of the videos. I don't want to rely on him or control him to make myself happy.

My husband and I have been married 22 years. Our 20th Anniversary was a pivotal moment. My husband told me he felt like we were living as roommates and he couldn't take it anymore. I asked him if he wanted a divorce, he said no.I told my husband that we needed help, and I wanted to go to marriage counseling. He refused and said that he was too busy, started a new job recently and it was just another thing to add to the list of things he had to do. We had slowly become emotionally disconnected over the past 3 years until this point of complete disconnection. 3 months after that day, he started texting his AP which quickly turned into an EA with no in person contact. She refused to see him in person because she didn't want to lose her job as he was a client. The affair went on for 15 months before I discovered the cell records. When I confronted him, he said she was just a friend, and he needed someone and he started having feelings for her in the past few months. I said it's been going for 15 months and he laughed at me. He knew he was caught. It's been 17 months since Dday. He left a year ago to pursue a relationship with AP. He told our college aged kids that we were getting divorced because he had an affair, he is in love with her, he cares for me but isn't in love with me, doesn't want to be with me and doesn't want to try to work things out, and he's moving out in 3 days. They were home on break for Thanksgiving and going back to school the next day. Our kids were completely horrified and shocked. I cannot get that image our of my mind no matter how much I try. It has devastated me and broken my heart to see my kids in pain because of their Dad. The most painful part of this has been the suffering I've seen my kids go through. I'm struggling with anger and resentment for him telling him those sordid details that they didn't deserve nor need to hear.I have many regrets. We are trying to reconcile in marriage therapy and it's going no where. I'm stuck in anger and he is stuck in shame. I'm losing hope that we can heal from this. I struggle with feeling like I'm plan B and I don't really feel wanted. I'm the one who set-up marriage counseling, reading books, blogs, podcasts. I feel like I'm chasing him and he's going the break minimum. It's making me feel like a failure and feel defeated because he doesn't "get it". He never asked me to forgive him. He never asked me to reconcile. He never asked me to go to counseling. I've done all of those things and I'm beginning to see that this is a one sided relationship. I don't believe my therapist can help me. I don't believe our marriage counselor can help me. I don't believe that my spouse can help me. I need to help me and I don't know how to do it. I'm in desperate need of help. After marriage therapy last night I've decided to join Harboring Hope because I need people. I know I cannot do this alone. I need support from people like me who have walked in my boots, battered and torn, slogging through the deep trenches of pain and falling into the pits of despair. Sometimes Hope is all I have. Thank you for listening and haring your stories.

It has been 9 months since discovery. I want to learn how to forgive for me, she has no remorse for the pain she caused. The pain is so terrible that my chest hurts and I can’t see the good in the world anymore. After a recent contact from the OW on my Instagram account where she called me selfish for wanting to fix my marriage and not letting them be happy. We have 3 kids and 16 years of marriage and the person just did not care. We had been doing pretty well until this recent one. Sleepless nights, crying so hard I feel like I am having a heart attack, and he just wants one day where there are no tears or pain. It is a punch to the guy. I feel like no one understands this pain in my family, friends, etc. I can’t stay stuck here but I don’t know how to move forward.

I feel like I am living a Lifetime movie, even tho I am pretty sure I signed up to be on a Hallmark movie!
Like so many of these stories mine has so many of the same hurt, betrayal, lies, etc.
I found out 4 1/2 years ago that my husband has had a porn addiction all of our marriage. 32 years and 5 children later! How did I not know….. well I
Did know that things felt off. I did know he would sexualize other in front of me. I did know in my gut!
Then finally some proof just to find out yes he has had an addiction. No real closure, only trauma on top of trauma for me. Then after I found out, Then we got “Hacked” so that was now his way out. Anything I saw from dating password etc was now the Hacker not him.
He has 3 phone number’s, so many secrets!!!
He only gets angry if I try to talk about it and makes everything about him. So I am not asking to help him- he’s the only one that can do that! I am asking to help ME!! Thank you!

I have been with my husband for 24 year, married for 21. In June 2022 he told me he was having an affair after being caught by a family member. This is the second time in 9 years that this has happened. The first incident he was remorseful and wanted to fix what he had done. This time he does not. I am going through the divorce process and most days I don't even know how I'm going to make it through. He was my everything. I believed him when he said he wouldn't do this again. He couldn't keep his promise to me. Why could he not love me the way I loved him? Why am I so easily disposable? Why wasn't I enough? I was a good wife and a committed wife. Why couldn't he give me the same in return? Some days I don't know how to make it through the pain and sadness. I have two teen boys ages 15 and 17. His relationship with them has crumbled. I'm trying my best to the one stable person in their lives but often fail because of my sadness and devastation. Why did God allow me to go through such pain? I didn't deserve this. I pray and talk to God everyday but many days I just feel forgotten. I'm grieving the loss of my marriage. I don't know that I'll ever feel better. Our family of 4 wasn't enough for him to not do this and I don't understand why. I am in desperate need of help so I can be whole again. Be happy. Find joy in life. Be the best mom that I can. It's all too much sometimes.

Praying for ability to find healing for the sake of my children and family. Thank you!