SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am new to this forum and posting for the first time. I have been married for 10.5 years and been with my husband for 13 years total. We are both in our mid 30s with two living children and a child who was born still 7 years ago.

My husband is a man who anyone who meets him would define as a good man. He He is an introvert for the most part, quiet and polite. For the first part of our marriage things were really well. Then our baby died. I got pregnant again shortly after and things drastically changed. I was not in a good place emotionally and he did not know how to handle it. He withdrew from me to avoid my pain and anger.

In January of 2021, His married female co-worker sent him a topless photo. About 2 months later he reciprocated with his own nude photo and she sent about a dozen more until May. She was sending him about a thousand text messages a month. Mostly work related but unnecessary. She was telling him she loved him and asking him when he would leave me. In May of 2021 he and I had a big fight where I demanded to know what was going on. I felt he was distant from me and I did not like the behavior of his co-worker based on what people were telling me. For the entire summer it seemed he had very little contact with her unless necessary, but in August he had a sexual encounter with her as well as mid-september. They both state that it did not go well. My husband was barely able to get an erection and was not able to do anything and stopped it immediately. Unfortunately not long after the September encounter his co-worker announced she was pregnant. My husband states he felt he could not tell me about the affair at that point because I would very rightly assume the baby was his. I did not find out about this affair until July of 2022 after she sent me several messages where she clearly was not happy that he rejected her despite the fact that she had just had her husband's baby. Was confirmed with a paternity test. He states his reason for the affair is a little confusing for even him but the best he and his therapist have come up with was he has a very low self-esteem and felt like he was never enough for me because I seemed so sad and he simply took what was offered. He never told her he loved her. He never let her to believe he was going to leave me, and he frequently told her he was happy with me and I have text messages where he explicitly asked her to stop the behavior multiple times.

My husband has done everything I have asked of him since then and has read a few books. He appears to be very remorseful and has had help. He asks me daily if there's anything I need to talk about and has been much more forthcoming about his thoughts and feelings .I however get stuck at times because I am so ashamed of what happened to me. I live in fear that the world will find out. I am so very shy and I do not like being the center of gossip. How do I get over this fear of embarrassment? I feel like everywhere I turn people are gossiping about someone's infidelity or there are reels about how I'm stupid for thinking about staying. I am blatantly slapped in the face daily with things stating that he will just do it again, that I have no respect if I stay. I am in therapy and I do a lot of coping mechanism things but I have severely intrusive thoughts that I have had difficulty dealing with. Any advice?

I'm so sorry you're going through this, I feel for you I really do *hugs* We are actually going through something scarily similar to eachother so I can genuinely understand how you're feeling right now. What you have to ask yourself is, why does it really matter what other people think about you staying? Until you accept that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, you won't be able to stop feeling worried about them finding out, as you can't control that to a certain extent, you can only control your own thoughts & feelings. I've had close friends & family tell me how admirable it is of me to even try to forgive my husband, and what a strong person I am. I do still have creeping thoughts about feeling weak for staying, but I have learnt to push those thoughts away & remind myself what my friends have told me... I am strong, I'm a good person & even if things don't work out, I can be content in the knowledge I tried my best & won't have any regrets!

My husband and I are currently living more as friends, as I've found it easier if we have time to both work on ourselves before seeing if I can go forward with a relationship with him. I'm concentrating on making myself happy like I used to be, re-starting old hobbies & seeing family & friends more, generally making myself a content happy person on my own, as I can't rely on someone else to do that for me. I'm finding it almost therapeutic to start back with the basics of being friends with my husband... having a chat after work when he gets home, taking our son to the park together... Just normal things you would do with a friend, but as time goes on if we can build something more then that's great, but if not at least we will have a good honest & open friendship to enable us to co-parent our son together separately... I'm trying to think positively about the situation, because I realise that thinking negatively & bitterly will get me nowhere 💗

[This message edited by Devon99uk at 4:34 PM, Monday, February 27th]

Thank you for your reply and I am so sorry you are in the same place.

To be honest, I guess I just hate being talked about so much because I'm incredibly private. It also does not help that I am a straightforward person and people seem to find it funny to joke that they feel bad for my husband having to be married to me. Now that I know what I do, it cuts me so deep to hear that

I'm so sorry about your baby.

I’m sorry that you are here and also sorry to read of the loss of your baby.

Only 7 months from dday, you are probably still dealing with some ups and downs as you navigate this new reality. It really sucks.

You can’t control what other people say or think about your decision to stay and work through things. Infidelity is definitely a hot topic for gossip. People who engage in this gossip surely have no idea how painful it is for those going through infidelity. I’m guilty of it myself prior to my own experience.

Given what you said about being a private person, I think it’s best to limit who you tell and try to surround yourself with people, friends, family, you can trust. (Except you should tell other BS. Do they know?). I personally kept everything to myself with exception of a couple friends who did not seem to understand why I was so upset since my husband was not physical with his AP. So I wish I would have just kept my mouth shut.

I know my WH’s AP and her friends probably talk and laugh about it. Jerks. WH AP no longer worked at the same place so that wasn’t an issue for me but he did completely cut out socializing with AP friends and made other changes to even limit his working relationship with them and others who might have known. That helped me a lot.

Your WH doesn’t still work with AP, does he? Sorry if I missed that. Has your WH separated himself from AP’s friends and his colleagues who knew about affair? I know it may not always be possible to distance completely from everyone who knew, due to working relationships, but he should definitely cut any social ties with these people.

As for your comment about people feeling bad for your husband staying with you- that sounds like hurtful comments. Are these your WH friends? This does not sound like the type of supportive friend a WH should want to be around- if he is trying to rebuild himself and a relationship with you.

Anyone who is not a friend of the marriage has to go in these situations. I think I read that (or something like it) in Shirley Glass book, Not Just Friends. Did you read that yet? It’s a good one.

[This message edited by slamsunk at 4:03 AM, Wednesday, March 1st]

I have only told one person and she has been a lifelong friend who I knew would be supportive of me and not try to push me one way or the other.

The other BS does know. In fact, he is the one who spilled the beans to me after his wife gave him my phone number. He apparently did not want to tell me because he did not want me to feel the pain he was, but his wife insisted that I should suffer just as much as he is. I realize my husband should have told me initially. He did tell me the whole story after many trickle truths about a month after that. A couple months ago he was able to finally sit down and tell me the story from start to finish. Previously he was a man who kept everything to himself and avoided conflicts at all costs and I now know that that is a personality type that is prone to this type of situation. He has stated from the beginning he did not have any real feelings for her. He simply liked the reflection of himself he saw through her eyes. The physical encounter was brief and barely occurred due to the fact that he could not gain a full erection, the AP supports the story so I am inclined to believe that. The AP has also confessed to her husband that she was the aggressor in the physical encounter and he had told her no more than once but she figured since he had a small physical response it meant he really wanted it.

My WS actually quit that job about 2 months before I found out. It was a surprise he had quit since he had been there for 14 years but he just showed up at home one day and said that he had walked out and he was crying and hugging me. I thought it was a weird response but I figured he felt relief being out of a workplace that had been so toxic the past few years.

We have no mutual friends with the AP. The only thing we have in common is she and I both work in the same industry still.

I actually just finished the book by Shirley glass and I did find it very helpful. I have been struggling trying to figure out how my husband slid down such a slippery slope, but she put it in a way that I could understand as much as someone can in this situation.

Hi @CFme923 I'm so sorry you've had a reason to post on here but do know that we're all on here to support and encourage each other in navigating the aftermath of betrayal.

The fear of people knowing and the feelings of embarrassment is not uncommon but please do remember that this is not your cross to bear and you have done nothing wrong to have to feel this way.

It's good that your H is showing by his words and actions that he's remorse and hopefully he is truly sincere and ready to do all he can do to rebuild the broken trust.

I believe with time, those intrusive thoughts will lessen as your emotions heal and you both move forward in your R and build new loving memories together.

Do also consider MC if you haven't already, I found it quite beneficial in my own R journey in helping my H and I to address issues in our marriage that we had rug swept for so long which partly contributed to the infidelity.

Praying the near future brings complete healing and true R for your marriage.

[This message edited by BellaLee at 8:11 PM, Saturday, March 4th]

Thank you! We are currently saving funds for MC. Unfortunately IC drained what little extra we had.

In the meantime we have time set aside each week to talk. I know he is trying to be better with his communication but my temper seems to just be so short these days, which I am working on.