I’ve been struggling with my husband’s disclosure after learning that his first affair was 21 years ago and a second affair 14 years ago. With each I knew something was wrong but was deceived. I had no clue this was the issue. Each of those lasted "about" a month and was "just" sex. I caught him in his most recent third affair which lasted about 7 months, became emotional, and he asked for a divorce. I’ve had issues processing everything because my history has been altered. My husband can't give me a time of year the first affairs happened, and says he isn’t sure but "thinks" he used protection, and has trouble answering most of my questions. My husband tries to understand the grief I feel, but I’m not sure he will ever "get" it. I saw this today in an article and it made perfect sense to me and I think it may help others in similar situations.

“If someone went missing ten years ago, and they just found the body now. You now know your loved one is dead, but really–they’ve been dead for a decade. It’s just that you now have that finality.”

My husband doesn’t feel any grief. He says that each affair happened because of opportunity and physical attraction. He doesn’t want to evaluate any other reasons that the affairs happened. He is emotionally closed off. D-Day was 14 months ago and we are doing the online class. My question is, if he never evaluates the true reasons for the affairs, doesn’t open up his emotions and grieve all that we have lost, and heal himself of the guilt and shame, is it safe to stay in this marriage and how likely is he to cheat again? He never admits when he is angry or hurt about anything. He keeps it stuffed inside. I think the second affair was because he was angry, but he says that I’m wrong.