I’ve been married for 17 years and my wife has been in an emotional affair for almost 7 years. It became physical 2 years ago. I was not aware of the physical portion until recently. She also had an affair via text messaging recently. I have been emotionally and physically unavailable since we got married. I never saw what I was doing. I used to be a happy friendly person and now I am stuck with depression and am reconsidering why God even created me. My wife wants to stay in the marriage, but I am very skeptical because I can’t see what will happen and feel that I will be miserable whether I stay or go. I don’t t even feel like I can love anyone. Who am I?

My husband and I have been separated three times as a result of my discovering his ongoing relationship with the same woman. Their relationship has spanned over 12 years of our 21 year marriage. We were a signature away from divorcing when we reconciled this last time. We have been back together now for over a year, and while there have been moments that are the best we have ever had, it has been so so hard for me. I do not trust him, and I am exhausted. I feel so stupid at times and question why I am trying so hard. I also question how this man that I still love (dammit) can be the same man that has hurt my heart so much. I need direction and peace. I hate to sound quirky, but "should I stay or should I go?"

I'm too afraid to trust anyone anymore.

On my tenth wedding anniversary my husband finally admitted that he had been having an affair with a coworker. I was still recovering from the birth of our fifth baby and my dad was dying while he started the affair. At the time of discovery he told me he had ended it.. over the last 7 months he has ended it with her 7 or 8 times. My world feels like chaos and I feel stuck in a state of anxiety and fear. I know I need to be the best mom I can be for my kids but because of the lack of stability and safety in my marriage, I feel paralyzed in fear. It makes every day tasks more difficult. I want to enjoy life again without this burden looming over me. I want to love myself again.

Hi Harbouring Hope,

Oh how I long for hope...how I long to feel safe again in my marriage.
I'm on a lonely journey right now, one that is so isolated I feel like I'm suffocating in the silence.
I found out in September 2022 that my husband of 14yrs was having an affair. Long distance over social media but graphic videos and images were shared. And this affair was with a friend of mine.
I found out when I found a naked picture of her on his phone. I confronted him, in that very moment of shock I confronted him and believed him when he said he'd never do it again.
The next 3 months I gave him everything he needed..and so much more. Only to find out he contacted her again and started sharing sexual stories with her in December.
I'm crashed, hurt betrayed.
I found your course in December and we started it...but then he got busy. And now I sit here in February waiting for HIM to make the change and I'm so despondent.
I cannot carry in this way, my heart hurts too much...this hurts too much.
I'd very much appreciate a harboring hope course to somehow see my way out from this.

500 words or less…I wish I could purge the hurt, confusion, tiredness, anger, hopelessness out with one simple word and feel that hope, “fire”, and passion I think I had in life (and in my marriage) many years ago.

That’s it in a nutshell and all I’m willing/wanting to share after 1 year and 4 months (timeline following discovery of my wife’s long-term affair with my best friend) of attempted self-led healing. Although I have made vast strides due to medication, counseling, and many many discussions and moments of dependency on my wife (which was and still remains to be out of a place of genuine care and wanting to continue our relationship), I now feel stuck and almost in a constant state of regression and hurt that I just can’t seem to let go or even repress. So, I’m reaching out in hopes to heal the hurt, fear, and anxiety of mine that is to establish a male support system (trust shattered in the wake of the affair), and work through this emotional tsunami that is my every day life; I want to move forward, not just in my marriage, but in life. I desire positive days and a hopeful outlook on life.

I posted a comment but it never got put on the blog? I just need help, simple as that. Married 30 years next year. D-day 13 months ago. But not the first D-day and certainly not the last. Feeling like I have no choice but to stay but some days I'm not sure how I am going to live the rest of my life with this ....i won't even say pain or hurt...it's just I honestly don't know how to feel or cope. There's more to it than just his infidelity and too much forcing me to have to stay. Please help.

I a missionary mom and wife with two kids. I got my citizenship way back but is currently working overseas. The reason I want to have joined on this free draw for this program is because I want healing in order to be more effective in doing God’s work no matter what will happen to my marriage. I am on the side of the betrayed, I am hoping God will help me change thru this program, and someday too will have a chance too to be able to help with my husband’s. We are still married but living separately. He is not planning a divorce but he is settled to live separately because he thinks my stress of too much for his health. He had his heart attack several years ago as a consequence of his affair and now he is living in guilt plus him witnessing my devastation. He said he couldn’t handle all the drama. It hurts but somehow I need to let go with the pain and move on for my healing. I am putting all these things in God’s hands that somehow I will be chosen if it’s His will for me to be on this program. If don’t, I will still try to save so I can really get help from you guys. I depend on a meager stipend and I am hoping I can be choosen. Just praying. Thank you

D-day was 9/27/23, 2 days after our 7th wedding anniversary. I am just as lost now as I was then with the constant lies, truth dripping, pain, confusion, and the constant how and why that play over in my head? After 10 years together and 2 amazing little boys to bless our family - is it all over? Is the life I envisioned and sacrificed for gone? I am hopeful but lost.

I got definitive evidence of my husband of nearly 30 years' full relationship affair with his 20 year younger coworker in 14 months ago. I say definitive evidence because until that day he vehemently denied everything. In fact, the day I saw his texts between his girlfriend (because that IS officially what she was) he still denied it, even when he and I were sitting next to each other looking at their text conversation on his phone. I am still finding evidence of how entwined they actually were. Unfortunately, just prior to finding out definitively that he had been as unfaithful as a spouse could get, I had agreed to reconcile with him. As I was in such a messed up state and didn't want to further disappoint our child (who was happy that we were reconciling), I went along with our planned reconciliation. Our child is much happier and settled now and he is being nice and sending me loving messages every day. So on the outside our family would look ok. But I am not. I have resigned myself to living in this life so our child has a stable family life. We are not fighting. We spend quality time together as a family. But on the inside, I am wandering aimlessly. He attended therapy for just 3 sessions. I've been through a full course of therapy, wanting to do more but finances just don't allow it. Reaching out on so many different platforms but not really getting any support. Is this all I can hope for? Is there any hope that I might actually feel like I love living my life one day? I don't even really feel that comfortable in my home. I share his bed but can't bring myself to move my clothes into the room. I have a few things in my bedside table in case I need to get dressed before leaving the bedroom but everything else is in "my room" that I stayed in during our separation. I don't think he even realises or is it that he doesn't care? He's never brought it up. Then again, he never brings anything up. Even when I'm noticeably affected he doesn't show any acknowledgement. Or am I just that good at covering up when I feel affected by things? I spent 12 months trying to tell him what I needed and I can't be bothered any more. I need to see that he seeks out what he needs to do. I need to see that I'm important enough to make an effort. I don't even hold out hope that I'll win this draw. I guess it's just that I have no other option than to at least try this. Something has to give.

My husband and I have been married for 35 years and I recently found out that he has been lying to me for our entire marriage. He finally admitted it 3 weeks ago, told me he had disclosed everything, only to find out again tonight that he was keeping details of an affair hidden from me. I am completely devastated and at a loss as to how to move forward. I did not see this coming at all and feel like I don't know who my husband is. I need Harboring Hope for guidance, camaraderie with other women who know what I'm experiencing, and to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I honestly don't know if my husband is capable of telling the truth or if our marriage is salvageable.

My husband's betrayal has changed me. I was a securely attached, creative, fun-loving, independent woman. I didn't worry all the time and I was mentally stable.
Now I'm so anxious. I question things I never questioned before. What he's doing, where he's going, what he's thinking. I question who I am. I'm anxious about our future together or our future apart. I'm anxious about how this is all affecting our adult children. I'm worried about money.
I'm so uncreative. That really bothers me. I used to bake, and sew, and knit, and build furniture, and upholstery, and create games. I just can't bring myself to do anything like that anymore. Plus I'm isolated. Moving away from all of my friends. Not that I have shared anything with them.
For now I'm concentrating on finding community. I need to feel more like myself. I need to talk more about it. I need to find people that understand.

I would like to feel heard and understood without our world coming crashing down more than it already has...

the d-day was on oct 2022.

It was devastating and it felt like my life has crashed.

Desperate for answers, i kept googling and read one after another articles. It was during the search that i discovered this website. What was mentioned in the articles on this website, i am able to resonate with it. The articles was detailed and covers a wide range of questions that i have in mind.

After going through the free 7 days of bootcamp and weeks of pondering, i deciding to take the plunge and sign up for the betrayed partner workshop. I do hope it helps me with the healing as i want to move on with life. Life goes on as long as one is alive.

Harboring is a holding onto of something safe and secure.
Hope is the expectation or belief that the future is full of good things.
I need both of these as I walk this journey from being betrayed to becoming the woman God designed me to be and with the man He chose to walk with me.

I could see the trouble coming a thousand miles away but couldn’t stop it. It’s been a year but I am still shook and so angry. I don’t want to be angry anymore.

It's been 3 1/2 long years since I found out the devastating truth that my husband was having an affair. In all of that time and through all of our conversations (not even - they were more like me asking questions and him either deflecting or just not answering), he claimed to want to save the marriage. I later discovered he had never stopped with his affair partner and is with her to this day. They have been together now for 5 1/2 years. Every chance he got over the last 3.5 years after I found out, he ended up choosing her, i.e. going right back to her, while telling me he had no contact at all with "this person." He protected her identity and would still be doing so, had I not tracked them down in December 2022 and was able to meet and speak with her myself. Turns out he had been lying to both of us through the years. In our case, he pretended everything was fine. In her case, he led her to believe that he wanted out of the marriage so he could marry her. Instead what he wanted was both to continue with her and to keep his marriage, because of the comfortable life he had become accustomed to, with me as the primary breadwinner.
I am divorcing him but the hurt and the pain are with me constantly. I am using the Affair Recovery resources to move forward with my life and to stop dwelling on a past that cannot change.

I discovered my husband in a chat room 3 1/2 years ago. At that point we had been married nearly 40 years. He lied to me and manipulated me throughout our relationship. I fell in love with my husband at the age of 18 and have loved him with my whole heart, my entire adult life. He came into the marriage addicted to pornography, and I had no idea. As a military pilot, we were often apart. In the fourth year of our marriage, he visited a prostitute and broke the covenant of our marriage. My husband came back from that deployment, convincingly acting sad and shocked that the other wives in the squadron had no idea what their husbands were doing on deployment. I was crushed to hear that this was going on, and so thankful that my husband was faithful. A version of this played out over many years, especially when he flew internationally as a commercial pilot. He engaged prostitutes at his hotels, got many massages with “happy endings,” visited strip clubs, and on it went for 40 years. He would not touch alcohol at home because “Christians don’t drink” but was falling down drunk overseas and spending thousands of dollars buying rounds for the bars. I told all my friends how blessed I was to be married to this wonderful man, not realizing that was just the image he wore at home. When we met for full disclosure, the behaviors had escalated in ways I never would have even imagined in my nightmares. I had hope for our relationship because I believed that deep down inside, this is not the man my husband was, and is. But now, as he has been through various therapists and inpatient and outpatient programs, he absolutely cannot, or will not show any empathy for my pain. I think he is done with me and doesn’t want to deal with that. He participates in 12 step groups, and one of his favorite lines is that the best thing he can do to help me heal is to heal himself. And then he says that I am responsible for my own healing, and he cannot heal me . My response is that that is true but he can make it easier or harder for me to heal and all it has been is devastatingly hard. I have asked him for empathy and patience and compassion even when I am triggered. He thought he was so far lost That he could never come back. And when I tell him that his healing and mine do not occur in two different vacuums, but have an effect on each other, he is very dismissive. We are starting divorce process and selling our dream home but I am broken. This has been 40+ years that I didn’t understand his physical and emotional withdrawal from me. For decades, I have felt the distance. I carry a heavy weight in my heart and tears right below the surface 24 hours a day, yes, even in my sleep. I know I need help. I have worked with a few therapists, and been to some intensives that helped me see that I am not alone and get support from other women. But I wonder if it’s even possible for me to heal if he refuses to enter my pain and show real compassion. I feel old; I gave up my career to stay home with the kids and here I am after living my entire adult life in a lie with lost dreams, an altered past, wondering what’s wrong with ME.

I have a somewhat unique situation and am so grateful that the answer to my midnight prayers came when scrolling infidelity topics late last night and I came across your Affair Recovery website.

My betrayal was over 10 years ago and it ended my marriage (my decision) and although the details surrounding my betrayal were never fully exposed, I live in fear that one day they will. Since that time, I have made amends with my ex, my kids, and the family members and friends that were hurt. The after-shock and ramifications of my decision and the details of the betrayal continue to haunt me and I think keep me from truly moving forward as I am stuck in feelings of unworthiness, shame, disdain, embarrassment and fear of ever having to truly own this or explain it.

Had I found your program back then, maybe things would have turned out the same, or different. Unfortunately I was so eager to move on from the secrecy of the betrayal that I avoided opening the door to any healing that needed to be done. Instead, I buried the feelings beneath a new relationship and for 7+ years I stuffed it down and covered it up so I didn’t have to look at what I had caused.

Years later, I am finding that you can’t run from your shame, your regret or your feelings of failure. They follow you into everywhere and now into another relationship that deserved honesty that I just didn’t know how to give because owning your mistakes can sometimes feel like it will destroy you.

My reluctance to “own” my past, truly forgive myself, and make as much peace with it – to myself – as I can – is a journey I should have taken long ago. Now, older and hopefully wiser and guided by God, I feel the need to finally ask myself what led this “good girl”, to be a “bad” girl, and then return to a good girl with a past she never likes to talk about.

Even though I would be entering the course with my marital fate already decided, my hope is that Harbouring Hope would give me a new foundation to unbox the past, understand it, allow me to own it fully, learn from it, and be a more complete person that is unafraid of her shadow as I keep becoming the woman and partner I was meant to be.

It’s been 5 months since I discovered my husband’s second affair. The first one was 8 years ago and took us almost a year to reconcile. I had not yet found affair recovery and wish I had done so many things differently now. I was never able to convince to do an EMS weekend with me before even though I knew we needed it. And in the end he had another affair that lasted twice as long as the first. We work together and both of his affair partners have also worked with us which makes for a very unbearable work experience. I’m still unsure if I want to end our marriage even though we have been separated and living apart for 5 months. He swears he will do anything to fix our relationship this time. At the moment I’m primarily interested in fixing myself and I hope that Harboring Hope can be a good start.

My husband and I have been married for 22 years. During that time we have separted three times over his relationship with the same woman (the first time in 2010). I have had multiple discovery days when I found evidence of communication between them, but he has never disclosed or been completely open and honest about what transpired. I have blindly trusted him when he said there was no physical relationship and that it was just a friendship that became "inappropriate". It's like there has been this solid wall in my heart and mind that just would not let me go there. The last time we were separated, the separation lasted for a year and a half, and we were literally a signature away from divorce. I could not bring myself to finalize the divorce. I felt I needed absolute proof of the sexual relationship in order to know I was making the right decision about ending the marriage. His denials and saying he did not want a divorce led me to doubt myself. I desperately wanted to place him in a situation he could not deny. I knew they were at a hotel together, and I confronted him there in the parking lot. When I left there, I felt crazily vindicated and was certain I would divorce him, but then this intense physical and emotional pain took over. I really did not believe or had been unwilling to believe even after all these years that is was an actual physical affair. Obviously, we reconciled again. There was a break-in in our home and our teenage son with Asperger's was home. He was not harmed, but robbed and threatened. It shook our world and opened doors of communication. We have been back together now for over a year. I so want to believe his assurances that the affair is really over, but I just cannot shake this feeling that he is still lying. Even though we have been in counseling, he will not talk about the affair. He still has yet to come clean about when the sexual relationship really started. After we reconciled this last time in 2022, I found cards and letters from her in his apartment and office. I now know that he kissed her in 2009 (from a letter she wrote). With the cards and letters, he also had kept an old Victoria's Secret magazine from 2010 with her address on it where she had circled items she liked and made notes to him personally. He STILL will not admit that their physical relationship started before this last separation in 2021. He says he loves me and wants our marriage. I don't understand any of this. I don't understand why I stay; why I so stupidly want to believe him; why he wants to stay; and why he keeps lying. My gut tells me it is not over, and the fear is overwhelming. What am i doing? Why do I still love this man? I am humiliated and disillusioned. I have a Masters' degree, so does he. How can two seemingly well educated people be so stupid? What is wrong with me?