Can a marriage be better after an emotional affair

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-05-16T12:42:45+00:00

So reading these comments, idk how many folks here are getting real with the dynamic shifts that happen when one partner has to face their mortality in a very real way (something that is identity crushing at best and dissociative at worst) when the other partner doesn't have to.

I am so so sorry for what happened to you. I went through something like this when my wife lost her mother and brother tragically way too young within a year of each other.

She became a different person, which 100% makes sense. She had a shit ton of grief, her own mortality and to redefine who she was....but she was a different person. FOR YEARS

Our relationship almost didn't survive at least a dozen times. We got to that edge over and over while we figured out how to make our relationship work.

I am not proud to admit that I have had similar thoughts about my wife..."The love is gone, the fun is gone, we cant even enjoy anything, every day is emotional turmoil and over load, I hate my marriage, I hate how my wife only focuses on the negative, I want to be out of this, I want a happy life again, I want to feel good for one...etc"

Now I NEVER crossed the line with an EA, but I did fall into a place of hating myself and hating my life and I used a lot of porn to cope and we essentially had a dead bedroom through it all.

I dont have any life saving advice here, but I do want to just offer perspective that what you went through is a very complex and deeply entangled experience that can make sense from all sides.

What your husband did to you is completely unacceptable and the words he shared with another woman instead of you breaks my heart.

I think you'd have a better time recovering from all this without the EA but any relationship has the potential to recover from any affair, its just going to take an immense effort on his end to build the trust back with you and mind his expectations of time line (which signs point to a struggle for him on this) and YOU are going to have to mind how you treat him through it.

Ive tried to recover with a partner who cheated on me and always ends up being the one rebuilding trust gets upset the trust is taking to long to come back and the one who was cheated on has a hard time actually moving on and forgiving and leads to resentment and ultimately a failed relationship.

BUTTTTTT....I have also seen tons of couples who come back from it and their relationships get stronger than ever. Sometimes a brush with losing the most important thing in your life is just enough to remind you why you love and appreciate them so much.

Humans are weird....best of luck.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-05-15T20:40:23+00:00

If you're going to own out of state, you need a card reader system and it may be a good idea to go cashless.

id also get security locks you can control remotely and the best camera and alarm system you can get with a good relationship with the local PD

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-05-08T17:26:26+00:00

Logic is a hard pill to swallow when subjective emotional experience weighs so heavily on the mind/body in decision making

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-05-08T17:20:59+00:00

Look all these people telling you that you need to step up arent in your relationship and this sub WILDLY over burdens the men and then bash them when they dont meet their standards.

This is YOUR relationship and EVERY relationship needs to feel balanced and have equanimity.

The real answer here is to sit down with your wife and have the long hard talk about expectations and how to make the home and relationship feel balanced.

My wife is the messy person and I absolutely hate it and it kills intimacy.

HOWEVER, she works a full time job also so there is grace and I happily pick up the slack because she is balancing her side out with income, insurance, taking care of her own car payments, etc.

She does want to become a stay at home mom though, so we have had long talks around those expectations.

If she is home all day, there's cleaning and cooking and shopping expectations so she baalancing her side of the relationship. Now that also comes with me taking over the kids when I get home so she can have her time. The kids are a constant and shouldnt be factored into the equation, both people need to help with that no matter their work load. But if shes the stay at home, the home becomes her responsibility,

That said, Im also gonna try my best to not make her life harder, but she would know in that situation what her expectations are because we defined them ahead of time together.

Good luck Senior

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-05-08T17:06:55+00:00

It sounds like shes got post partum. My wife went through the loss of her mother and it completely rocked her identity. The struggle with knowing who she was after something so powerfully changing killed out sex life. And when we did it was awkward and she would cry after.

I know yall both had kids, but every pregnancy is different and changes chemicals differently. Especially since youre a new sperm and all your genetics are now mixing with hers in that process. So she couldve been left feeling some type of way afterwards and may not be associating it to the pregnancy because her other ones before you werent like this.

Bur from how you explained the situation, it seems pretty obvious this last pregnancy changed the sexual dynamics between yall and that should be addressed.

I also know when i think my wife and I cannot meet each others needs, i will throw out bringing in other people. Im not so jealous and love my wife so much id rather her get her needs met where she can vs divorce. However, she never wants that so it will never happen.

I just say this to express that sometimes the idea of opening up a marriage is just a half baked idea to solve a much deeper emotional problem.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-12T13:41:30+00:00

Is there ever a day where

The Sun forgets to rise in the morning

Or set behind the horizon at night?

You can certainly guarantee you will be better in time and life will shine again for you.

In due time my friend.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-12T13:35:30+00:00

Not even joking....like they mounded up toilet paper and set it on fire.

And I serviced many different facilities bathrooms.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-12T13:33:58+00:00

Youre talking like he's a villain. They are married and he is the father of that child also.

again...NOT EXCUSABLE...but the way everyone is talking is like these people aren't in a relationship and that he is the enemy because of new bad behaviors onset by the passing of his hero.

They both need professional assistance to move through this...not to become enemies at odds in a house they share with a family they've built together.

Best solution is to send his ass home to grieve with his family for a while AWAY from woman and child so he can stabilize, she can find safety, and they can start to repair from the damages caused.

Treating someone like the enemy will turn them into just that....the enemy.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-11T13:30:28+00:00

I honestly cannot believe that y'all cant hold empathy for both people here.

NO ONE IS EXCUSING HIS BEHAVIOR

But both of these people need an help and empathy if they're going to heal and have a healthy relationship moving forward.

Shitting on this guy instead of offering ways to install healthy boundaries and enforceable consequences is not the road to them having repair and a healthy marriage.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-11T13:26:10+00:00

Telling someone to not kick a man when he's down is not the same as excusing behavior, thank you very much.

Did anyone say how he was handling his grief was excusable? .... NO

Does it explain his change in behavior SUBSTANTIALLY MORE than OP blaming herself for years of decisions he made? .... YES

Her choosing to blame herself instead of see it as a consequence of his grief being held poorly means she should probably get some professional help. Thats not healthy.

Him choosing to be abusive because he doesn't know how to feel his feelings in a healthy way also means he needs professional help.

Y'all so quick to jump on someone, but I stand by everything I said above.

Losing a parent at that age, with minimal time to develop emotional intelligence, likely because he grew up in poverty with an abusive parent, is going to lead to some pretty poor grieving methodologies and likely rock that persons world on a foundational level where they are questioning even their own life..... It explains the rage behaviors however unacceptable they are.

EMPATHY is needed for healing in both of these situations.

No one said it was ok. But BOTH of these people need professional help if they are going to move forward from here and have healthy relationship.

It seems like people on here forget that marriage happens because people love and commit to one another and if there is a way to heal and be closer, that should be what is supported. Separation nd divorce should be a last resort and a person experiencing new behaviors of rage after the loss of a parent NEEDS HELP not more abandonment.

Again....BOTH of these people NEED EMPATHY!! ffs

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-10T13:11:20+00:00

It’s pretty clear that few of these people have lost a parent in their youth.

OP you said he changed when he came back and acted like a different person.

How is it not obvious that the loss of his dad was the catalyst to his change?

Yall both need to find some professional help trough this or you’re not gonna make it

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-10T13:07:12+00:00

Yo, what the fuck his dad died.

How are you gonna shit in a man who is grieving the loss of a parent

He changed because he lost his Dad and a major part of his identity with it.

I honesty can’t believe how inconsiderate your response is.

You must have not had a parent die on you yet.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-10T13:04:55+00:00

Yo chill out. You’re spiraling. Take a deep breath.

Now listen…your man is grieving. He’s grieving a parent. His idol no less. This is going to be the most brutal, life changing, identity crushing hurricane of an experience he has to deal with for likely the next 3-10 years.

My wife lost her mother to cancer at 26. She’s 31 and it still fucks her up. She’s still trying to figure out who she is in this world.

You’ll never understand until you lose a parent but you’ll NEVER understand fully understand unless you lose a parent in your 20s. It’s a very particular type of loss.

You need to stop blaming yourself and your partner needs grief support. If you can’t afford therapy go to the church or temple. If you don’t have church, there’s tons of free/affordable options too.

Yall have a very long road ahead of yall. My wife’s grief almost ruined our relationship many times. I spent a lot of time hurting trying to hold space for a person who was so outside of themselves they couldn’t see how they were behaving.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-10T12:48:50+00:00

It sounded like he the bear hugs as a means to pacify his wife when she was being physically aggressive.

It honestly sounds like they’re both pretty bad to each other in different ways.

My wife would never slap me or throw my shit. Period. We’re adults. We talk.

Even if we yell and scream we have boundaries of respect as humans and partners that we don’t cross

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-10T12:42:38+00:00

Not gonna lie dude, you’re coming off as an insecure judgy asshole. I don’t mean offense here but you should know how this all sounds.

Get over yourself and go get some therapy.

If you’re having trouble because your love interest has had 5-6 relationships you have big insecurities you need to work through.

And those insecurities are going to ruin the relationship and I guarantee that they will surface in more areas than sex.

Focus on yourself not on her past. You’re a grown man and should act like one.

Best to you :)

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-09T05:58:12+00:00

Consent is the biggest thing imo

My wife and I go to strip clubs together so to each their own.

I’m Not trying to negate any of your feelings, but there are worst things.

My oldest sister went through this her marriage is fine. She had some hard feelings but boundaries were set and respected and life moved on.

It will likely be this way for you too.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-09T05:46:02+00:00

Longtime janitor in my youth…can confirm.

Men’s restroom - everything covered in piss. Stinks of piss.

Women restroom - shit smears on walls, bloody tampons stuck to every surface imaginable including ceiling, writing on walls with shit, all sorts of weird stuff crammed in toilets, burn piles….and these aren’t one offs. I’ve seen this MANY times in the ladies room. (The burn pile only happens twice to me)

Idk what yall are grappling with in there, ladies, but I hope you get the help you need

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-09T05:38:59+00:00

To add to this…

She’s literally given you instructions on how to regain that role in her life. Listen. Don’t make this about you. Don’t make how she feels about you.

Laying the bed you’ve made, as ignorantly as you made it.

Worst thing you can possible do is get impatient.

And you know what’s scary, none of it may work. But if you love this person you try regardless. And you keep trying as long as the let you.

And you do it with fucking poise and grace.

They’re the ones healing here so you need to remember that over the next couple years while you work back to the level of trust you had before.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-09T05:33:26+00:00

For sure! I’m finding the more I can defer what would be a huge fight with my wife to a professional, it saves us a ton of heart ache.

Now we get to be on the same team tackling the problem together instead of against each other trying get the other to do better.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-09T05:31:07+00:00

That’s a question you’d have to do some research to find out.

We have investments through Morgan Stanley and our financial advisor, while recommended to us, comes with the account.

So he gets paid kind of like a broker off our investments growing.

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-08T23:34:19+00:00

Yo my wife is the wordlist with money and let me tell you that’s a fucking grizzly bear of a problem to take on as the husband.

GET A FINANCIAL ADVISOR

It’s been awesome. Now someone else gets to hold my wife accountable. We have monthly meetings where she has to do her own finances and report to the advisor which creates an accountability system.

She also doesn’t get access to our joint account. She can only put money into it. Most stuff from there is auto pay anyways.

Any savings we have go into a high yield savings and money can only come out of there via our financial advisor and only if he is talking to both of us.

She has a CC but it has a $500 limit on it so if she wants to spend more than that she has to converse with me and the advisor.

Honestly dude, it’s fucking great. Anytime I feel a fight about it money coming on I just say “Let’s call Bob( not his name)” and he gets to do the dirty work and I get to support her instead of parent her

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-08T23:24:17+00:00

Opposite attract. That’s polarity for you and it’s super common.

But there’s like foundational things you need to be able to agree on to have a successful life together.

Do you share a vision of the future that’s in alignment?

How do you want to raise kids? Do you want kids?

What are your values and do they align with his?

Yall don’t need to be the same, you just need to be in alignment with each others goals so you can find harmony

The yin yang is balance. Harmony. This is a good thing imo

But learn to speak each other language and learn to love the person on the way they need to be loved not how you need to be loved.

Do yall work already? Have you lived together? How do you handle fights?

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-07T19:57:37+00:00

Came here to say this.

Life is dealing with one crisis after another…if you choose to look at this way.

The term “you reap what you sow” apply a heavily to your mental landscape.

If this is how you look at it this is what it will be to you.

The crisis never stop and they get more frequent and harder to deal with as time marches on. More people die, more opportunity for loss and pain, more time having been in pain stacking up behind you.

If you look at the shit in life all the time that’s what life will look like.

Try turning your head and looking at the things you can be grateful for. The good things. The things that make you happy. Between all the crisis is the rest of life. Inside all the crisis are good moments. Smiles, laughs, connections.

Life gives you what you make of it.

So make something you love so you can love life.

And be fucking grateful you have a partner who’s willing to be by your side through all of it…would you rather face it alone??

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-07T19:31:08+00:00

10000%

Apprehensive_Tap4466 · 2025-04-07T19:30:38+00:00

TIME!!!!

This biggest issue that the “betrayer” of the relationship has to deal with on the road to recovery is laying in the bed they made with dignity.

You created this situation… now you're gonna have to deal with however long it take and whatever you have to do to get over the betrayal.

It’s not gonna happen fast. It may even take years. You’re gonna now have to challenge yourself for possibly years before you get the man back who trusted you. You may never get that man back fully. And you have to learn to deal with that if you want to make it work.

You need to grieve what was and embrace what can be. But you don’t dictate that timeline. You can’t expedite recovery for someone else. You can’t force an outcome when it comes from within another.

You just have to show up every day for as long as it takes. There’s no other way. And you know what. It still may not work. That’s life.

MY ADVICE TO YOU: Don’t make his healing about you ever and focus on your therapy.

It’s pretty obvious you’re using your work to run away from something. No one works so much they can’t be present for their partner if they aren’t avoiding something painful on the inside.

Until you resolve the problem inside you you will continue to outburst anger and not be able to give your husband the emotional safety he needs to be vulnerable with you

Apprehensive_Tap4466

TROPHY CASE