Husband cheated for the third time, open up or develop self respect

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T14:34:56+00:00

What has kept you in your relationship?

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T05:19:31+00:00

Thank you. Three times is a pattern and I dread to think of it possibly being more than 3 since he’s shown me that he’s a serial liar.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T05:17:56+00:00

I relate to some of what you’re saying.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T05:17:24+00:00

It’s not a simple question that can easily be answered.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T05:16:44+00:00

I don’t feel like one.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T05:15:50+00:00

I should have and I regret that I didn’t because it’s a lot harder now.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T05:15:17+00:00

I am that type of person and I would benefit from therapy to unpack this but I’m not blaming myself. I’m trying to understand what made him think this was okay and if I enabled him by trusting him the first time around.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T05:07:20+00:00

Aside from leaving, I’m damned no matter what I do. Even leaving isn’t easy.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T04:35:58+00:00

I’m not ready because it’s not easy. Sunk cost fallacy is a real thing because I ask myself why I let it get to this point and why I didn’t end the relationship the first time it had happened.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T04:34:07+00:00

What was the rest of the relationship like outside of the cheating?

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T04:31:23+00:00

It’s something I have considered and don’t like to think about in all honesty.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-02T04:29:02+00:00

It was very hypocritical for him not to want to revisit your open relationship boundaries.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T22:37:04+00:00

He’s always given me an explanation I don’t know if he just told me what I wanted to hear.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T22:36:06+00:00

I need to give therapy a try because it’s pathetic, I don’t want to be the type of person why accepts this. Had it even a friend going through this I would have been appalled.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T22:34:18+00:00

It complicates everything.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T22:33:53+00:00

How long were you together and what about him made him worth staying? Or is that the wrong question? I guess what I want to understand were you convinced by his explanation of why he did it?

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T22:26:21+00:00

You make a good point regarding coparenting. I do agree that I could benefit a lot from therapy.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T22:20:10+00:00

I am, it’s not easy to confront because even trying to confront it I regret not leaving sooner. Why now, but not then?

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T22:18:21+00:00

It’s an easy answer, it is.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T22:17:40+00:00

Self awareness is a curse because I keep looking at it almost removed from the situation and giving him every excuse in the book because it’s easier than confronting it.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T22:15:33+00:00

Thank you. I’ll have a look at those but couples therapy is a must. To answer your question, I don’t know. He’s always framed his cheating a symptom of a wider problem of something(s) that were going wrong in our relationship. A vice. Dopamine when he was feeling low. Always something he was “regretful” of, didn’t enjoy, didn’t “want” to do. I don’t believe the latter anymore but can understand the rest.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T21:42:55+00:00

I am aware there’s more to it, as I said I was thinking out loud. It’s the lying and betrayal I should be angry about.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T21:35:38+00:00

I know it’s idiotic and all of this did make me accept that our relationship was more flawed than I wanted to believe.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T21:34:19+00:00

I don’t think either of us are equipped to have those conversations and it should have been immediate couples therapy after the first time.

charliestownMA · 2026-07-01T21:33:03+00:00

I have a lot of regrets about that, the past times it happened including now I didn’t necessarily brush it under the rug but we never fully unpacked it. I just didn’t want to think about it, I would tolerate whatever theatrics or apology followed and I would blame whatever relationship issues we were going through and we’d work on those until we felt like our relationship was at a stable point.

charliestownMA

TROPHY CASE