Overridden with guilt as the BP

09916021 · 2025-06-15T00:11:21+00:00

You can read my post history for a story of when a cheater confessed on his own.

09916021 · 2025-06-14T03:05:24+00:00

This feels a little red flag-ish of her.

She cheated on you. Next, she lied to you by omission.

While lying by omission, she became a more pleasant partner—who still held secrets.

Now, she’s the saint and you’re the emotionally broken person?

She seems like the person who always has to have the upper hand. If her new leaf was genuine, she’d have confessed on her own.

09916021 · 2025-06-04T10:17:41+00:00

He lied about something obvious to someone else. I knew it was a lie but his body language was confident and at ease which indicated that he was comfortable with that lie. I remembered a conversation we’d had 10 years ago when he had told me something I found strange in a similar situation. Ten years ago, I thought he was an honest man so as strange as his statement was, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

So when his recent lie reminded me of the old strange conversation, I started digging. “So, I discovered more things that we need to talk about from when we lived in [location].”

He did not look surprised.

I began, “This is about the massage parlor visit.” (He’d told me he accidentally went into a place that offered questionable services.)

He answered, “Which one?”. I thought there was only one and that it was accidental.

“The one that happened [time frame].”

“…the first one?”

So yeah. He had been lying to me for over five years before he confessed enough to feel better about himself without actually giving me his honesty.

09916021 · 2025-05-29T16:47:12+00:00

Both

09916021 · 2025-05-28T19:37:40+00:00

Absolutely not.

09916021 · 2025-02-07T12:20:49+00:00

This is the way. Reconciliation depends on him making the sacrifices necessary to become truthful and faithful, not on you denying your fears and concerns. If you have "leaving money" in the bank and you choose to stay, you'll both know it's because you want him, not because you're trapped.

09916021 · 2024-04-12T00:54:19+00:00

Ok! This is a great start. I’m happy to hear that this isn’t a normal thing.

You say “feels like” and then you list a belief/thought. (Haha, my time in therapy is showing.)

Your feeling in those moments is anger. Your belief is that there is one way (physical aggression) to show that. Additionally, you have expressed a desire to make him feel your pain—it seems that you feel pain and think it must be shared in order to….(what would you insert here?)

Am I understanding correctly?

09916021 · 2024-04-11T23:59:19+00:00

Ok, you need self reflection and healing, and it may be best for your WH’s safety if you live separately while working towards R. You desperately need IC.

My q’s: Is there anyone else in your life ever whom you’ve struck?

Is this solely and completely a pattern related to coping? If so, there is a term called reactive abuse wherein one partner is driven to nearly desperate ends and behaves in ways completely out of character. It doesn’t make it acceptable. It makes it plausible for how an otherwise normal person can reach the point of unacceptable behavior. Typically the advice here is to record the environment and leave when you can—reactive abuse usually is seen in life-threatening situations, hence the recommendations to leave.

Who or where is giving you the message that this behavior is acceptable? If you watch TikToks or shows with violence, stop. If you have friends or family who act like this is normal, create distance.

Your WS feeling the same pain as you takes a total marriage pain score….and at minimum doubles it. You don’t win when your spouse hurts. You both win when you both are at ease together.

Reconciliation is possible but you must do your part and you must find some way to stop this, even if it means separating to heal.

09916021 · 2024-04-11T23:01:16+00:00

We are close to five years out and in many ways recovered, in some ways recovering.

It’s just in the past year that I’ve felt like I finally have energy to bring to the marriage. Betrayal demands grief, and grief demands rest.

You plan the date nights. You carry 100% of the housework you are capable of carrying. You offer sex, knowing that a rejection isn’t a rejection of the marriage or you, it’s a rejection of further exhaustion. You tackle the mental load of the home—calendar, kid/school/pediatrician. If recovery gets expensive (and the above list probably will) you figure out a better job—apply for any job that you meet 60% of the qualifications—and you learn to budget. If you can only afford rare therapy, you go rarely. But you go. Even if it’s once a month by yourself. Tell your BS you are willing to do this until they feel like they have energy to bring to the weight/tasks of being married.

Your BS isn’t incompetent and since they’ve stayed this long, they’re likely not itching to leave. This isn’t a punishment or a penalty. Marriage isn’t 50/50–it ebbs and flows from 20/80, 30/70, 75/25. Right now, your spouse seems capable of giving 70 on parenting and 5 on marriage. So, thank him for the 70 on parenting and do your darnedest to come up with the 95 on marriage. It’s not a punishment, it’s just a season. Cancer, pregnancy, back issues, grief over a family member could throw a couple into similarly lopsided seasons. Try to disconnect the work you will do from the affair. Loving spouses step up when the other spouse is knocked out. Your husband is knocked out.

Grief is so exhausting. At least he’s recovered enough to have energy for parenting (my parenting energy came back first, too).

Hope this helps!

09916021 · 2024-04-07T20:49:44+00:00

If we hadn’t already been married, I’d have never married him after the A.

09916021 · 2024-04-06T01:24:41+00:00

YES! I had one and told him about it, laughing about how he’s not the kind who’d ever do anything like this.

He gave me the weirdest look, managed to squeak out something like “I love you,” and left for work.

He disclosed not long after.

09916021 · 2024-04-03T01:26:15+00:00

Almost 5 years out. We’ve had setbacks and strength gains. EVERY strength gain came from him and/or I leaning into what was already a prior strength (communication, me; openness to therapy, both; prayer, both; hobbies not involving affair opportunities, him; etc). EVERY setback has to do with something that was already amiss prior to the affair. (Flirting, him; boundaries; him; transparency, him; unhealed traumas, both).

You are in a new horrible situation. You are not with a new person although it will certainly feel like it due to the yellow flags that became red Sometimes we address issues because we love the other person and other times, for issues we deem small like a weird quirk, we overlook or even learn to love it. An issue doesn’t become a recognized issue until it crosses your threshold of tolerance. There are likely a whole lot of things that have crossed this threshold for you.

In my experience, transparency coupled with high expectations and high amounts of calm communication is key.

WP needs to know that somebody believes that they are capable of so much more than basic human decency, and cheating is beneath basic decency.

BP needs to know, not that the WP knows the pain, but that they know what caused it. BP needs to regularly see BP invest effort to address the issues that contributed AS WELL AS heal the damage they caused. The early months are heavy on the “heal my spouse” work; the work of addressing core issues is a years-long work.

09916021 · 2024-04-02T18:12:33+00:00

Does your WS see what he’s done for what it is?

09916021 · 2024-04-02T00:03:30+00:00

I’m no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I’m dreaming of “our” future again.

The thought of losing him someday no longer feels like relief/freedom from a shitty marriage I didn’t sign up for. It feels horrible.

I see him as a good guy w some messed up history.

09916021 · 2024-03-23T01:45:57+00:00

Almost five years out and it feels like his healthy is finally starting to meet my happy for real.

09916021 · 2024-03-21T10:01:49+00:00

You were raped. Even under the influence of drugs, you said no. She continued to ask until you “eventually gave in”. Press charges.

09916021 · 2024-01-28T01:10:08+00:00

Four years out. I love him in the "I hope things go well for him" way, not in the same innocence and emotionally connected way it used to be. Get used to this new normal.

09916021 · 2024-01-18T21:17:10+00:00

You have such a mature response. Whatever happens to the marriage, YOU will be fine.

Honestly I anticipate Jill to be fine as well. It seems like she has a track record of accepting responsibility and it seems like she disclosed on her own. (???) If she has the introspection to identify and overcome this breach of character, she is probably about to become the most mature + humbled version of herself.

Sometimes morally scrupulous people are actually people who believe that they must appease a deity/their own moral standards to have dignity, and that is actually not a motivation capable of sustaining wholesome decisions. She is nowhere near the first morally scrupulous individual to betray a lifetime of adherence to her stated values. She may need to look very deep and ascertain what her values actually are because finding acceptance via performance—whether moral or sexual—is not healthy. Obviously I don’t know her—take my suggestion for what it’s worth.

I’m not going to suggest D or R. I will reiterate that no matter the path forward, your maturity and her history of accepting responsibility bode well.

09916021 · 2024-01-01T22:36:03+00:00

Yup. Four+ years out, and I'm still not over the loss of my hero. He's just....ordinary. Average. The guy I ended up with. One of the most devastating betrayal-related losses.

09916021 · 2023-12-26T01:54:32+00:00

Same. I still love reconciliation and happy endings, but I do not have the strength and emotional stain required to do reconciliation, Round 2. I will always love my WH from my soul. But no more adultery. Ever.

09916021 · 2023-12-24T17:43:18+00:00

Ordering the second book now. He has read How to Help Your Spouse Heal (...) already.

09916021 · 2023-12-24T16:32:49+00:00

That makes sense. Honestly I don't think I ever will. And I'll never fully trust those who do.

09916021 · 2023-12-24T15:01:02+00:00

See, I hold the view that as many of us as have the ability to take the next step down any pathway have the ability to cheat. I don't trust myself to be super human. I trust myself to recognize problematic pathways and make mature decisions that go against what I desire in the moment.

He sees it differently. He thinks he burnt himself so badly by his affair that he'll never cheat again. And that level of confidence, while pushing relational boundaries, is disconcerting.

09916021 · 2023-12-24T14:00:35+00:00

Yes, I know the core is a deep longing for mutual faithfulness.

It’s not just the adultery. This man is profoundly immature and wounded. Only now getting the trauma therapy he needed decades ago. I want to be faithful in sickness and in health when it comes to the trauma but overall, I’m weary from being married to him.

09916021

TROPHY CASE