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I don’t know what I want from this post I just need to get it out. I’m destroyed, I’m broken and I don’t know how to even get through the day right now. I just want to speak to people who understand and won’t just say "leave" . Because I don’t want to leave .

My husband has had an "affair" - I class it as an affair as he had sex with another woman on two separate occasions over a period of 2 weeks. After that he kissed another woman when drunk. I’ll explain below.

Bit of backstory we have no children (together) , we’re both 35 and have been together 8 years , married for 4. Up until a year ago it was a fairytale , even through the rocky patch he was still as loving and attentive. Everyone thinks we’re the perfect couple, so did I . He is obsessed with me, he can’t keep his hands off me I have never felt or witnessed love like it. About a year ago we hit a rocky patch that I didn’t realise was as rocky as it was until we talked after his infidelity and the beauty of hindsight.

I was studying law, at the end of my studies, and I subsequently started a very stressful job. Around the same time he had a promotion that caused him to work away. Looking back we have always had two underlying problems ; his drinking - never abusive but he became quite dependant and is a different person after drink and the fact that he has a massively high sex drive and I don’t. Our sex like has always been amazing , but he would have it morning , noon and night whereas if I’m tired I’m just not in the mood. He has mentioned a lot to me about how he struggles with this and he has tried many things to help - however when I am stressed I can only focus on one thing and I become quite self centred. For example , he would honestly approach me about his feelings and I would attack with how tired I was , how busy I am and how his sexual needs were the last thing on my mind. When he was working away he would call me , text me all the time - really lovely things and I’m sad to say that I very regulary brushed him off … said I was busy , would call him back but I didn’t . In my defence I never intended to be horrible, I was just overwhelmed. It then became that for a few months we barely spoke when he was away and the weekends were full of arguments. He said a few times that he loved me but couldn’t live like this and as it was heat of the moment , I said similar, but we made up - I just didn’t take it seriously and I just kept thinking when I’m finished studying / settled in the job things will be better , I’ll make more time etc . There was never an issue with his attention to me or him making time for me , he always tried . I’m not defending what he did im just giving a clear picture .

4 months ago he kissed someone , drunk , brief, a party we were both at. I found out straight away. It was horrendous, I felt so betrayed . I gave him hell … he was remorseful promised to do anything to make it right, stopped drinking. We spoke deeply for the first time and he told me he had felt that we were ending and that I didn’t love him anymore . He had felt like it for months , tried to talk to me but I didn’t listen. He felt like I wasn’t attracted to him and that I was preparing to leave. Also during this time I had changed my name on social media so that it wasn’t my married name - This was for my job but he said he really thought it was for another reason due to how distant I had been. He said he had prepared to leave me , as he couldn’t take me leaving him and that one weekend he came home with the intention of leaving me ( this becomes relevant)but that weekend I was different , like I had been before our bad times , and he realised he could never leave me because that one weekend was worth all the crappy times . I remember that weekend, I was off for a week and less stressed… sadly the week after I was back to the stress again and our marriage began to suffer . The next thing was the kiss and like I say after that we really talked, it was so painful but he swore to do anything to make us work and begged for a clean slate . Weirdly it felt like that kiss was a turning point and our marriage just got stronger. I’m settled in my job , I’m not the stressy person I was - I’m happy , the relationship has been happy our sex life is back on track and we’ve had an honest talk about his sex drive and taken steps - were in the honeymoon period again and everything just feels perfect . Well it did .

3 days ago I discovered that he had declined to tell me that the weekend he came home to tell me he was leaving , was after he had had sex with another women whilst working away . On two seperate nights over a period of 2 weeks or so. He’s remorseful , he’s been crying , begging , saying it was before our ‘clean slate ‘ ( it was 6 months ago ) he said he genuinely thought I was leaving him and he was certain he was going to leave first , said he was drunk both times but did text her in between talking about what was happening and said in his head he thought it was a way of definetly ending things between us as he could never face me telling him I don’t love him. He said when he came home that weekend and things were good he realised he could never leave me as he loved me too much and the enormity of what he did hit him. At this point he just blocked her and tried to bury it. The messages I found that led me to confront him match this as it’s that week after where , over a period of a few days she messaged him asking him to call her, saying she just wants to talk , then saying that she loves him but he don’t ever say much to her , then saying if it’s her he wants come and get her , then saying is he ending things and could he just tell her to eventually asking him to block her. He had not replied to her at all , I can see nothings been deleted. He said hes had no contact with her since , he didnt even explain to her just blocked her and that is clear. He said he never gave her the impression of anything more
, he spoke to her about us but he said it wasn’t like flirty messages or sexual that between the 2 nights they were just talking and she worked in a bar he went to and on those two nights when drunk he took her back to his hotel room but said he was clear to her what it was and she asked him once if they could ever be more and he said no and said when he saw the message where she said she loved him he didn’t understand as it hadn’t been said before but like I say he didn’t respond to it. (Not that I give a dang about her feelings as she knew he was married but it does appear that he used her then dropped her ) He said he really wanted to tell me when we had our 'clean slate' but he saw how upset i was and felt it would be cruel and living with the guilt was his punishment. He said he has been tortured and he believes that the level of drinking that led to the kiss , is his guilt eating him up as he said when he drinks he can convince himself that I’ll never find out and we will be ok. I do remember one time after it all that we were being intimate and he almost began crying , it was just different - he was so loving and attentive and he was just saying over and over again that he only wants me , only ever wanted me , wants me forever … i remember thinking this is a bit much , is there something he wants to tell me and I actually asked what was wrong and he just said he just loved me so much and needed me to know. I now know from talking to him that he came very close to telling me then . He has cried , begged - begged me to please hold on to the fact it was before our clean slate , before we faced the issues in our relationship and that he meant everything he said , and that he has tried to be perfect and open and honest with me since then as a way to atone even though I didn’t know. He really has , he has stuck by everything he said but this now feels like fresh betrayal . Sex is different to a kiss.

The past few days have been awful. I’ve cried , shouted , taken my wedding rings off , ran out of the house , not eaten , grilled him for 4 hours to the point of tears …. I’m heartbroken , I feel empty. I love this man so much and I really want to make it work and get past it , I believe he loves me I do but then he betrayed me so deeply by having sex with another woman.

He has offered everything- he has said he will be here , trying every day forever no matter how long it takes. He has said he will never go back to that place to work ( it’s 150 miles away ) , he is already looking into different jobs so that he never has to work away , started the process for marriage counselling , answered all my questions , he’s creeping around me , told me I can have all the passwords to all his social media, look at my phone whenever I want literally everything
( not that I want that , it’s not how I want the relationship to be ) so I know he doesn’t want anyone else , we have no children together , we don’t own a home together , we have no joint finances etc in fact we would both be better off financially if we weren’t together so there is literally nothing physical to keep us together , nothing to tie us …. What I mean is it’s not easier being together so it’s not like there could be any other reason he is here other than love .

But why. Why did he do it , how could he . I’m so hurt. My illusions of him and my marriage are shattered. I feel like a part of me is gone , forever. How do we recover , how do I get these graphic images out of my head of him and another woman ? How do I ever be touched by him and not feel like he’s tainted . I’m broken. I do not want this to be the end , I love him he is my other half I can’t imagine life without him and I do not want to be without him but I just don’t know what the next step is . Please somebody help me .

Sorry you are experiencing this. First and foremost at least stay hydrated if you aren't eating. Second they lie ....alot. Unfortunately your husband is not the man you are in love with. He doesn't exist. Recovery just in the traumatic disclosure takes awhile to stop reeling from. Please don't make any decisions one way or another. I hope it all works out but it's alot of work. 18 months in and my husband's emotional affair haunts me 24/7.Sick of the emotional Rollercoaster ride.

I’m going to get pretty graphic. Have sex in the morning as you wake up. Then at the evening when you’re exhausted you can tell him to wait till in the morning. Believe it or not that is a comfortable way for both of you to start the day because it’s a loving bonding time.

He needs some help with this because all men have a pretty high sex drive at his age but they can control it better so there’s something underlying his that he needs to talk to someone about. Did he have a chaotic, toxic childhood? Was he possibly molested? Sometimes people who’ve been through that use sex for love because that’s what they were taught.

His emotional attachment to you sounds frantic. That means the sex and the helpless attachment are rolled up into enormous amounts of anxiety. I would suggest a psychiatrist because they can prescribe medicine if needed. The fact that he was talking about leaving you that quickly tells me that he needs to be attached to some female. Since he loves you and he’s dedicated to you then he needs to use the help out there to make sure his attachment and love to you is healthy and it is not right now.

Lastly, he needs AA. Those excuses about his drinking are just that, excuses. He has a problem with alcohol and he needs to go somewhere where some pressure is put on him to stop before it owns him.

I'm so sorry you're here but so glad you found SI.

First - please take care of you the best you can. Hydrate, eat, avoid alcohol, and get sleep. Use OTC sleep meds if you have to.

Second - and I know how shocking this is - please get to your dr and get tested for all the STD's. Cheaters lie, then they lie some more, then they lie about their lies. I've been here 4+ years and I can't tell you how many JFO's just like yours there have been. And in maaaaaybe 10% of those instances did the BS ever 'know everything' right off the bat (even me, who's wh 'confessed'... yeah, turns out his 'full confession' was still only about 50% of the facts). Almost always it turns out there was a LOT more going on than they knew. Not saying that to dash your hope, but rather to tell you to just brace yourself for further revelations/discoveries.

Third. I remember how overwhelming it was when I had my first dday. I remember feeling like my life would literally end if we got divorced. I remember hating him but 'needing' him at the same time and how conflicting that was. I remember all of that. But we did end up divorcing (it's just a sad fact that most marriages don't survive infidelity) and let me tell you that if I could go back and talk to my newly betrayed self, I would tell her that divorce is not the worst thing. I would tell her that living without a cheater is peaceful and calm. I would tell her that she was going to be okay, no matter what shook out.

Lastly. Your wh is not owed sex. Your wh in any way blaming you is just typical cheater blame-shifting avoiding accountability bs. How do I know that? Because mine said these exact same things almost verbatim to me. It's sadly pretty typical. But healthy loving individuals don't try to solve their marital issues by having random relations outside of their marriage. He had a million other choices - therapy for the M and/or himself, a weekend getaway, separating, etc - that he could have done instead of cheating on his wife. I don't care if you were the worst wife in the world (and you weren't), it still doesn't justify the choice he made to cheat. That's 100% on him.

I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Believe me, we've all been there so we know.

I think the first thing you'll want to do is to relieve yourself of any lingering notion that you have ANY responsibility for your WH's choice to cheat, and it most certainly was a choice regardless of what state of inebriation he might have found himself to be in. If there weren't some innate lack of boundaries there, he couldn't have done it and that's on him.

I think we BS's are really keen to take the blame even though cerebrally we might deny it. It gives us the illusion of control... because if it's our fault, something we did or did not do, we can fix it. Of course, the truth is that we aren't gods who have the power of choice over other people.

Your WH didn't cheat because he was drunk and he didn't cheat because of his sex drive. He cheated because he wanted to and because there was nothing inside him that made him stop, no belief or boundary protecting the values he claimed to honor.

I don't think that's unusual really. People just don't have much need to ponder on their true values until those values are tested. We drift through life thinking we know what we really believe, but then, those beliefs meet the realities of daily choice and sometimes end up showing their fallibility. There's a "but..." in their core value, an escape clause. ie. "He believes in Fidelity, but... not if he's drunk and thinks he deserves more sex because his drive is high."

The truth is that if monogamy and fidelity are where your heart is, if that's your REAL truth, you can't just toss it aside. There's no "but...", no mitigating circumstance for a core belief.WE PROTECT WHAT WE VALUE

Infidelity ends up challenging everything we thought we knew, and one thing it changed irrevocably for me was the unquestioned dogma that I was personally responsible for my fWH's sex life. We get married, commit to monogamy, and the next logical step is to acknowledge that our partner only has one option for sex after that, and that seems reasonable. I think what we forget though is that our partners are still ultimately responsible for their own happiness and satisfaction, and that monogamy doesn't abrogate anyone's responsibility to meet their own needs. If your WH was dissatisfied with the frequency of sex within your relationship, it was HIS duty to either rectify that situatuion or to let you go if he thought he'd do better without you in terms of sexual satisfaction. Cheating is NOT a coping strategy for adults who take real responsibility for themselves. You were not born on this earth to be anyone's sexual jungle gym. The idea that sex drive is a legitimate excuse for perfidy prioritizes sex over love/commitment. IOW, if that's his truth, he values sex more than YOU, in which case, you are better off without him because you are a purpose for him, not a person.

I am a big believer in the idea that people really can change, but change is hard. It requires deep, painfully humbling introspection, and it requires that we question our own ingrained dogma. It sounds counterintuitive, but the first and best thing you can do for this guy is to STOP cutting him breaks. He owns his actions and he needs to take absolute reaponsibility for every aspect of his choices, including his choice to foist off responsibility for his sexuality into you. You are NOT a sexual entertainment unit nor are you an unpaid psychiatrist there to treat his emotional insecurities. You are an entirely separate person who deserves respect and honesty from those who claim they want to share your life with you. Set your bar low and people are free to continue wriggling in the dirt. Set it high though, and sometimes they rise to the occasion.

((hugs))

I’m so sorry that you’re here, lostsoul. Infidelity is the worst. You’re in good company here, and you’ll receive lots of support.

So he cheated because he WAS AFRAID YOU WERE GOING TO LEAVE HIM. No. I know that he sounds sincere and apologetic and hurt and broken, and you really want to believe him that the fear of losing you was just SO big that he had to leave you first. REALLY????? Does that make any adult sense in the adult world? At all? Think about other examples of this. I was so afraid that my new car would get scratched that I decided to take a sander to it. I was so afraid that my dog would run away that I abandoned him in the mountains before he could run away. This explanation is cheater bullshit. I’m sorry.

It’s designed to distract you with his BIG, BIG love for you. So big that you left him no choice when he thought you were going to leave him. Did he ever once give you ANY indication that he was preparing to actually leave? Anything????

Now, let’s take the next part of his explanation: he was so determined that he HAD to leave you because he was SURE (somehow) that you were leaving him in spite of NO evidence of this that he not only was planning to leave you (even though this ISN’T what he actually did) but he CHEATED on you first. So if what he felt he needed to do was leave you. . .why didn’t he do THAT? Why did he cheat on you instead? He didn’t say that he was so convinced that you were going to leave him that he decided he needed to cheat on you first before you left him. He said that he had to leave you first. Where did the cheating come into that? How did that become a necessity or even a possibility BEFORE he put his plan to leave into effect?

Cheaters are SO good at self-justification and blameshifting. This is likely the set of lies he put together in his head to justify the cheating to himself. My WH did something similar and it’s actually pretty common. My WH told himself AFTER he had decided to cheat, that I didn’t love him anymore and that I wouldn’t even care. This fed into his insecurity and his victimhood and his ultimately blaming me for making him cheat (because I didn’t love him, you see, in spite of the fact that I was still just going about life taking care of him and his kids and our home and my job). This explanation sprung right up for him when an opportunity to cheat came along, and then he made it his "truth" to make him feel okay about cheating. He had been justifying doing questionable things for a long time in just this way, as it turned out.

Cheaters brains often work that way. They don’t feel okay just saying, well, I’d like to cheat and treat my spouse in a really shitty way because I want to, am drunk, whatever. They convince themselves of whatever they need to to justify it.

But that’s a cheater’s brain, in this case, a cheater’s brain that was especially easy to convince because he was also drinking. We BSs don’t have that excuse. Our brains are dulled by trauma and by our desire to believe any explanation that makes our WS’s horrible disrespect, disregard, and betrayal of us understandable. In many cases, there is already an established pattern in the relationship of us excusing or rationalizing some of our spouse’s behaviors that seem selfish or unloving or accepting explanations that don’t make sense or putting our own needs after theirs although they don’t reciprocate often.

You’re very new to this shock. Your heart and brain are in such trauma right now that you probably are looking for a way for things to just move forward and move back to normal. It’s very unlikely that that will last. You will probably start to get angry very soon. You will also probably begin to think back over his explanation and also to question other incidents (like the drunken kiss) in light of what has happened. That’s very normal. He should be willing to answer any questions you have, give you access to all of his electronics and his social media and get into counseling with someone who has experience with infidelity. He should give you a timeline of everything that led up to the infidelity and the actual acts themselves, including the separate kissing incident.

It’s too soon for you to commit to anything. You’re still in shock. You need to take time to give yourselves some breathing/thinking room. He needs to start thinking about how he will work to do what you need not and make himself a safe partner. As much as you both may want, you can’t just go back to "normal" on a promise from him that he’ll be good from now on. You both need to understand how this happened and what he’s going to change to be a safe partner in the future, for you or anyone else.

As has been said, cheaters lie. ALL of them lie. ALL of them lie a LOT. You don’t have the full story yet because he doesn’t have it. He is still believing his own bullshit as it flows out of his mouth. Again, he did NOT cheat on you because he loved you just that much and was just that afraid that you were going to leave him. Just no.

Beyond that, as others have also said, it’s important that you take care of yourself and focus on what you need. Don’t fall into the trap of taking care of his guilt and fear and shame right now. He needs to take care of that himself. If he can’t and needs you or someone else to do that, you will know a lot about why he cheated and will likely do so again in the future unless you take full responsibility at all times for soothing and bolstering him. No one can be all that for another person.

Most of all, keep posting. You’ll get a lot of support here. Take what you need and leave what doesn’t help you. There isn’t a right or perfect way to get through this. We’ve all stumbled through as best we can and will try to help you get through it better than we did. This sucks so much. Sending you hugs of strength and support.

[This message edited by NowWhat106 at 9:17 AM, Friday, January 6th]

Typical cheater excuses for making the choice to cheat is to blame the betrayed spouse in some way shape or form.

Typical excuses are you didn’t love me or you didn’t support me or I thought you (the betrayed spouse) were cheating or going to leave me etc.

My H actually told me that I didn’t really love him when I married him. That I married him for other reasons. He knew I was madly in love with him but chose to "blame me" for his affair.

Please ignore those lies that came out of your H’s mouth. He is only trying to justify his behavior with lies and half-truths.