I feel like a broken record when I tell my Unfaithful husband "to embrace me in my pain even if it's painful for you to hear!" So many times I keep it bottled up until the children fall asleep only to have it explode onto him and he is cowering and cringing pushing me away and all i want from him is to embrace me and say I'm so sorry I did this to you. He only wants more space which is how he ended up taking it with his AP in the first place. We are at a year out from D-day and about 9 months in reconciliation after being separated for 4 months. I've done harboring hope, but he hasn't done everything I feel like he needs to do to move forward in this healing process. I will send him this article and hope he hears it. I feel like we need a referee in order to even hear each other's hearts right now. So hard to not live in fear! Thanks for your insight and for addressing the unfaithful who need to stop cowering and have the integrity to be accountable for the damage you have created.

My spouse's actions were to lie for 20 months after confrontation--to me, therapists, family. He was a coward when it came to coming clean and he deceived so many people into believing him -- except me. Then when I received a "package" in the mail with evidence that left no doubt as to how truly deep and long the scope of both his affairs actually were, I had to start all over in my recovery. It has been 6 weeks since DDay 2. He is being the husband I had always hoped for, showing remorse, trying to break contact with the AP (which is difficult because he works with her), trying to understand my bouts of depression, insecurity, anger, etc.....at least, I THINK he is. I have to be honest and say that because of his actions for the past 20 months, any trust that had been started to build has been totally nuked. I have given him six months to quit just telling me and SHOW ME that he is sincere; however, anyone can "act" repentant for that long and then go back to the AP. Since this last affair is the second time with the AP, I know that he has an emotional connection that cannot and will not be broken. I think a small part of his heart loves her and I can't do anything about that. It will always hurt me. I no longer know the man I married 36 years ago and I fear that I will never be able to know him completely again. He lost a piece of my heart with his lies and his cowardice at telling the truth from the first confrontation and his watching me in pain for 20 months without doing anything to help. I am trying to do what God is telling me, which is to still keep trying to reconcile, but truthfully, my heart just is too weary and I am so tired of trying.

I did not use the wait and see approach. I went all in at the start, I knew the risk I was taking the potential for more pain. I knew the struggles going on in my own mind. But I just felt that it was worth the risk. We were just a month and a half shy of our 25 wedding anniversary I had already invested so much of my life in the marriage I had to do my best to try all I could to save it. I never once thought about revenge or to lash out I wanted to rebuild not tear down and throw away. A very good friend of mine has a saying that he brings up tome every time he is looking to make some big purchase. Risk vs. Reward it did play a part in my decision. I risked the potential pain for what I saw as a potential reward of a better marriage. It was not even close in my mind I never hesitated when she had said that she did not want a divorce that was all I needed to risk the pain I would or could have to go through.
I wish in some ways my wife would have taken a more active role in our and my healing but then again because there was no help from her I did not depend or look to her for my healing and in that way I feel I healedmmuch faster, especially listening to the struggles the others were going through in our EMSO calls. I would share that what I have heard from others is that for the most part revenge is not the desire of the faithful restoration is. I do not know why so many of the unfaithful act as if that were the case. Is it the things they maybe still hiding that creates a real fear? Is it the fact that they still struggle with the feelings for the other that they try to hide that gives them fear. Is it their own thoughts of how they would react if the rolls were switched that have them fearful. As for this one I can nust say that for me before disclosure when I had suspicions I thought I would dump her and move on no questions asked but when it happened that was just the opposite of what I wanted to do. It is amazing how things change when it is real and just not a thought. We do need to find better ways to honestly be able to share what is truly going on in our hearts.
David

I too went all in at the beginning. I had told myself I'd never stay with a man who betrayed me. I saw how infidelity tore my mother's life apart, both my aunts' lives; and when I grew up, I sat in a chair next to my best friend in front of her computer as she found evidence to prove her husband had cheated, and I was the one who held her hair back when the shock launched her into the bathroom to vomit and cry. I told myself I would leave and not look back if I ever found proof of my husband's affairs. And yet, when my turn came, I was swallowed whole by a vortex of pain, confusion, and fear. I had so many emotions, so many thoughts at once, but not once did I seriously think of starting the divorce procedures and even less going through with any of it.

I fought my husband when he refused to even admit the truth, even when we had to go be tested, after my doctor have me a tentative diagnosis of a common STI. He spent months lying to protect his AP, blaming me for every negative feeling he could remember, and even concocted a few dozen false accusations to throw my way to justify himself. I forgot that I'd sworn to protect my dignity through it all and basically humiliated myself, surrendered much of my anger from the first few weeks to get him to see the truth. I may have done the wrong thing, giving him so much of myself over the past 15 months since D-Day. It cost me my health, my self esteem, two years of my career, my family, my self respect, and it almost cost me my life.

Currently, he likes to boast that he's a changed man, that he cares about me and my well-being, that he's there for me to listen and comfort me, but the reality is that his promises fall very short of what I experience on a regular basis. I have ptsd and I get regular panic attacks and some days triggers are so bad that I stop functioning for hours. Like someone else said above, all I want is an embrace, reassurance, understanding, acknowledgement of the pain I feel, and sorrow on his part. Often, that sorrow I wish he'd feel is just sorrow that he feels together with me. I don't want him to live in guilt about his betrayal, but I really hope he's as brokenhearted about the price I've had to pay for his lies and disloyalty as I am. I want to feel like I matter to him, like it matters that I'm in pain. Instead I get defensive, annoyed, curt reminders that it's over, it's been over a year, I'm doing this to myself, and lots of unfriendly, cold posture and distance from him. We've had the same discussion over this maybe 50 times since d day, and at some point he even wrote himself a memo with a list of things I wish he would do. He did so while angry and ranting about me not helping him"act the way I want him to".

Am I expecting something excessive or unreasonable? It is actually his lack of empathy and lack of sorrow that have started to wear away my desire to even stay in the marriage, let alone give him the benefit of the doubt. I feel as if I may as well be alone and go through my recovery without him for all the support I receive from him.

Thank you, Samuel, for your reply. It has been a hellish year and three months since d-day, and a year and a week since he made the actual confession (initially, he lied about who it was when he couldn't deny being unfaithful once I found out he'd given me an STI). He insisted my accusations against his real AP were unjust and arbitrary, that she was a kind and sweet innocent I was targeting out of spite and unfounded suspicion. So for the next three months, I had constant discovery about more and more shameful things he'd done. I felt like I was constantly having the ground disintegrate beneath me and I'd hit a new low almost every day. And then the harassment from the AP started and didn't end until he wrote her an email threatening to go to her employer (she works for a religious organization that has strict moral contracts) and to her husband to expose her behavior if she didn't stop all contact with our family.

Since, we've had two marriage counselors, three, if you count our priest. I had to take part in intensive out patient group therapy during the first few weeks, then I've been following up with two separate therapists and one psychiatrist because of the severe depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, and come to find now, it's ptsd. So I've been placed on medication to stabilize me and allow me to sleep a bit.

I also took part in Harboring Hope this summer which greatly helped me to regain enough confidence to return to school after having to bail last year in the wake of this mess.

I have heard of emdr, I know our counselor is licensed for it, and I'm in touch with many health professionals in my area due to school. I asked my psychiatrist about it, but he said he wanted us to give the meds a chance to work first.

I've tried to get him interested in either EMSO, or Hope for Healing, but he says it's not necessary, that he knows what went wrong before and that he won't allow it again. I also tried to persuade him to go for personal counseling to get to the bottom of his issue, because although he claims he has only had extramarital sex with two different women in the 20 years of our marriage, he has been involved in countless episodes of flirting or sneaking around with female friends and strangers alike, and emotional affairs with some of his female co-workers. All this while at the same time verbally and emotionally abusing me and subjecting me to almost complete neglect, unless he couldn't get what he wanted elsewhere.

To me, there is something completely wrong with his ability to commit emotionally and physically to our marriage, and I fear that it will just rear its ugly face again if he continues to deny the problem. Our current counselor isn't too keen on touching any subject that relates to the past, my trauma related to it, or anything that remotely offends his (my husband's) sensibility, because I shouldn't make him feel guilty by rubbing things in his face. The only topics she encourages are what's happening today, or what good things he has done that I'm somehow failing to see, which is actually a fallacy since I do make it a point to give him credit when he does something kind or loving. Meanwhile, I'm still emotionally abandoned during my difficulties and I'm losing steam for this fight...

Each time I'm rejected in the middle of a flood episode, I feel exactly as I did at the beginning, when he'd told me that my crying face only made him want to leave me because it reminded him of how much he hated me for trying to control him and come between him and his friends. He may not say that words now, and may sometimes allow me to hug him and cry on his shoulder, but he's extremely stiff, huffs, rolls his eyes or groans with distaste. The look in his eyes is still the same, though... And for that reason, I've begun to hide my breakdowns from him, just so I don't have to see that look in his eyes, because it hurts worse than whatever trigger had just set me off.