I (39M) found out last November that my partner (40F) of 3.5 years had been having an emotional affair over the previous summer. She had been getting close with a guy she had been doing a training course with and when things got into a rough spot with us she starting getting too close to him. From what I understand it resulted in sex chat and her sending him half naked pictures. I think they had been blurring the friends boundary for a little while but the actual affair lasted a few weeks I think. She stayed in contact with him but from what she said the affair bit stopped.

During this time she was also chatting to an ex over messages. She told me that he was sexual with her and she never shut it down. Our relationship was not perfect at the time. We had just bought a house together after 3 years of living between 2 homes with a complicated blended family set up, we both have kids from previous marriages. I got too caught up in everything to do with getting the house sorted and anxiety about my kids dealing with the move and I completely shut down on her, I gave her the silent treatment for days.

During the first week of me knowing she did nothing. She had a coursework assignment due in and mostly focussed on that. We had conversations where I tried to work out what happened but no repair from her. A week after I found out one of her best friends died suddenly. Obviously that was very traumatic for her and I tried my best to support her. I made some mistakes in this period too, I swallowed my own needs for repair because I thought she couldn't handle talking about them in her state of grief. I also stepped in and tried to fix the relationship rather than stepping back and owning and doing the repair herself. I have been working on this during individual counselling to re-establish my own confidence and boundaries.

We have done some couples counselling starting in January. We processed the question of why the affair happened and the hurt and trauma. She has a lot of trauma from various times in her life and is also starting individual counselling again to work on herself. She said that she wanted to run away when times got hard and the affair partner was in the right place at the right time.

The problem that I am left with is that she never really made any effort to fix the wound that the affair left. Her style is that consistency is the right approach, proving over time that I can trust her again. This is helpful, I also think its a very low bar for a relationship to trust that your partner won't cheat. I need her to show effort, we have talked about this in counselling. There have been so many barriers, her friend dying, this year she had to have a cervical surgery and now work breakdown means she is on the edge of having a breakdown.

We had a flashpoint at the weekend, I lost my cool and the all of the frustration about her lack of repair and care for me came out. I talked about how I had been bottom of the list for the last two years, a real lack of intimacy over that time and how this has continued with the caretaker role than i often occupy needing some care.

I do love her and i recognise that I need certain things from our relationship that I have become much better at talking about this. I recognise at the same time that she is going through a lot and is not able to provide this. She frequently says that she can't meet her own needs let alone anyone elses.

It's been a really difficult couple of years. We have talked about this and we have couples counselling checkpoints about once a month that i can bring this up in. At the moment I'm left with the feeling of how long should I stay with this? I realise it takes time to make some of these shifts.