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Avatar universal

I cant get it out of my mind

Hello everyone. Unfortunately I have become a member of this user group--- my husband had an affair, and in an unusual show of honesty, after prompting, he confessed. I thought i could handle it, hell, I even knew something was going on--- but actually hearing him admit it destroyed me. Its been so weird--- one minute I am so in love with him- the next minute I am sooo sad and cant stop thinking of him with her..... I am 37, we have 2 children, and we have been together since I have been 15..... we married shortly we had our 8 year old....but always were exclusive to eachother...... our relationship has been filled with tons of unresolved issues, lies distrust, but much love as well...... we have decided to seek counselling and move forward and let go of the past. He says he wants me, our family, and he realizes what he has done and will do anything to fix it. I believe him actually. When we are good, there is nothing better, sex is and always has been amazing, and knowing eachother for 20 years has its advantages. And disadvantages.
Its hard for me to not think of him with that other woman. Like it literally kills me....and I dont know how to make it stop   does it go away? can i really just forget it? i will have mood swings where i am completely happy, and then something will cross my mind and I will start to cry, get mad at him.....and I do know this is not healthy and further driving him away. But I cant help but wonder if things will really change? am I a fool for even considering things and he will???  he is saying and doing all he right things right now...... and i truely love him, and i know he loves me..but there is so much baggage, and I can never compete with anybody knew he may meet who doesnt have our issues, our past, any of that,,, and it scares me.....anyway, this is just a smidgen of the story, and I just wanted to say that I am happy I found this group, because as I lurked over the past few weeks, it had brought much comfort to me. and I thank you all......i guess just writing it has helped....any words of wisdom? advice? kind of so overwhelmed right now and dont know where to begin!!!!   but my husband is completely trying to show me he can be trusted again and that we can communicate better___ there are no issues there--- its just my apprehension of "can i believe him'" and embarrassment of being a woman scorned..... because on top of it all.... she was older than me, like 52, and he says it was more of a friendship and he was looking for someone to appreciate him and not be miserable all the time-which i admit, i was... i had reason to be, but i was miserable.....and that they had sex "only" 3 times..... somehow that makes it hurt worse......i dont know.... can anybody tell me how to not dwell on this and move forward with my marriage? because he certainly is willing....
thanks so much.....
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145992 tn?1341345074
I think if someone has not been through it than they can't grasp how painful it is.  Some people couldn't understand how I stayed and some couldn't understand why I couldn't just get over it.  Most of my friends were understanding though and supportive.  I had one friend though who could really relate.  Her fiance cheated on her for a year with some girl.  She went through it before I did so she was very helpful to me.  I also had physical fights with my fiance.  I actually threw a huge costco sized bottle of shampoo at my fiance's back.  I left a huge bruise and felt horrible about it.  That was the last of my physical outbursts because I just felt too much like Chris Brown...lol.  I didn't know where to put all that anger I was having.  My fiance wasn't very helpful either because he hated talking about it.  He kept on getting defensive and telling me to let it go.  Sometimes I would catch him on a good day and I could get a little bit more out of him but it was rare.  For me, I liked knowing that he was sorry, so the more I talked to him about it, the more I would get that feeling.  But for him, he was embarrassed by his actions, he was so regretful that he just didn't want to discuss it.  It wasn't until one day that he finally admitted that he hurts every day because of what he did and ever since then I rarely feel the need to bring it up.  It's only when there are certain moments when I struggle with my trust issues that we have a full blown conversation about things.  It takes a very long time to get back on track.  I always tell him that even though it was over a year and a half ago, I still struggle because of all the lies that were told.  It does get so much easier though when they continuously prove themselves to us.  
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Avatar universal
You are not irrational. You are hurt and have every right to be. We know where you are. and the whole farting thing LOL believe me been there done that. When we were intimate I would be thinking of THEM! It ***** I know. I physically went after my husband. That is crazy! I even had thoughts of suicide, not that I would do it but that is how low i felt. Thank God for my children. I just could never have imagined this happening to us. We got together when I was 18 and now almost 40, never had this crossed my mind. The sad thing is while it was going on he was talking about booking a cruise for us for our 20th anniversary. Just could not understand but like I said in time you will feel better I know it is hard to believe Mami would tell me that and I would think I sure hope so but did not know how or when but it does. It still hurts but I will say My husband makes every effort to help me through it and that does help. When people say stop whining about it just walk away. You need to get it out, I had someone say the same thing to me and said that she would kill to have what I had, so he made a mistake but at least I can wake up everyday with him by my side. I understood that but you just can't let it go. Is your husband willing to talk about it with you? I found that helped. I know mine felt bad and there were times I knew not to bring it up because it would not go well but hearing his feelings during that time really helped me.
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145992 tn?1341345074
Wow, I totally get you.  I swear you are writing my very exact feelings.  It's sooo funny because I think the opposite, I think "I wonder if he farted infront of her" because if he did, I would be so hurt because that would mean he felt that much more comfortable with her.  I wonder so many things all the time, even after all this time.  The other day we were going to hang out with his sister and her daughter and I was fussing about what I was going to wear and he said, I'm just wearing sweats and I was like "you never get dressed up" and he said, I like wearing sweats but in my mind I was saying "yeah, you would get dressed up for her", he would get all snazzy looking to take her out or to spend time with her.  How come he can try to look good for her but not for me?  My fiance's w hore (that's what I call her), was almost 40 but looked much older and she's quite unattractive.  She loved him because she caught a younger, good looking man.  She had the money, not him, she would spend it on him.  He would also borrow money from her to take me out.  But still the time he would spend with her, rather than being with me is awful.  He even lied about getting pulled over on New Year's, our son's first New Year's.  He was only a month old and he lied and said he was going to miss it because he got pulled over but instead he was with her.  He was most likely with her the night I gave birth to our son because he left the hospital early that day to go home to "sleep" but said he was going to his cousin's house to watch a movie.  Yeah ok.  He was with her the night before I got induced and told me he was going to church.  He spent Valentine's with her but told me he was working.  I actually was suspicious that night and called his job and they said he wasn't there.  I texted him saying I know you're not working.  He came home early, I guess I ruined their plans and he said he was out with a client getting money so he could take me out this weekend.  Only to try and make me feel bad.  Of course I had no proof so I had to take his word for it.  All the phone calls he made to her.  I remember sitting in the car on the way back from a friend's house and it was about a week after I found out about the affair and I said all the "f-ing phone bills I paid for you because you had no money and all you did was use it to call to talk to her"....he felt so bad.  I mean he would purposely start fighting with me just so he could use it as an excuse to not come home or to justify his cheating.  Making it seem as if we had a bad relationship but it was just him being mean.  Again, my fiance is the complete opposite now.  He's loving, kind, considerate, compassionate, sweet, affectionate, attentive.  He loves our family now and wouldn't do anything to jeopardize it.  Honestly, I think the affair really made him see how important I was to him.  I think people take their relationships for granted sometimes and when they are about to lose it because of some stupid actions, it's like a wake up call.  Plus, they know the grass isn't greener on the other side.  These women are not worth losing their family over.  Yeah they chose us, over them but it doesn't just make the pain any less.  It takes time to really heal.  It's like a death, we have to grieve the old relationship, we have to grieve the loss of who we once thought these men were.  They have now changed.  So we have to learn to accept that we can't change the past but we can control our future and by learning to let it go we can one day be happy again.  I'm going to send you my "angry letter".  I wrote it to our therapist when she wanted to know why I was still struggling with letting it go.  I'm going to send it to you in a PM.
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Avatar universal

All right I am going to sound like a complete whack-o for telling this especially since nobody knows me here but here goes...
****When he farts, do you know what I think of?
I think this: " Did SHE have to smell your farts? did you have the common courtesy to NOT do that around her? Why do *I have to smell it?"

Yup there it is.... this is just a sampling of what goes on in my head....lol...

I remember a few months ago, I even said to him, after a particular gassy, smelly couple days, lol  " Wow, I know your not cheating, because you cant make it twenty minutes without letting one rip, never mind a whole date--- wouldnt you be mortified if another woman smelled that???"  We laughed.
Meanwhile, he was 4 months into this thing that he had......  
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Avatar universal
Yup, I feel very much like a victim and I know that I have the power to *not* be it-- but I am not there yet... I am letting her take too much space in my head....
I think of every damn morning I went to work for 7 am, 12 hour shifts day after day to give him time to spend to talk to her and see her, all the times he told me he loved me, and that day he was with her--- all the phone calls, there are hundreds, of course I printed the cell bill out--- all the times he was "stuck in traffic" for hours, all the f kng shopping they did together--- even one dime he spent on her, that was MINE--- (even though it appears to me she is well off, and wasnt after my husband for his $$- she was with him because he is a young handsome man who loves to shop, has striking blue eyes, dark hair, six foot 2 and about TWENTY years YOUNGER than her-----BUT I DIGRESS).......

See? this is how I get  lol   And I completely know its irrational, unhealthy, etc... Its just so damn hard. Someone said to me to stop whining, half joking, because its not like I have it so bad--- because he is willing to do anything it takes to save our marriage and does nothing but show me love and affection, she says I could have it the opposite- he could want out of the marriage, tell me to f off....but he chose me, and he never ever wanted to be without me...
That all does make sense to me... But right now I am so sensitive, that I think of the slightest infraction he made in the past, or even does now, and I immediately say to myself " I HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THAT *AND* HE CHEATED? WTF"
And I know he feels bad... I really honestly believe him...because when I bring it up in my sarcastic, snide ways, I can see that it hurts him..... and I do know that I cant keep letting him walk around wounded and bleeding jabbing every chance I get--- if I chose to stay and forgive, than thats what I have to do....
We are talking about over 20 years of ineffective communication, issues, I mean we were literally kids when we started dating, had our daughter when I was 19 and have been together ever since.... There is alot of work to do on both our parts, we never tried counselling to deal with all of this "stuff"--- so, because I love him, and he does me, and our kids, I am looking forward to doing that.... I *do* get miserable and shut down, he cant deal with that--- we just sweep things under the rug all the time, but resent eachother more and more each day... but we promised that we are not going to do that anymore...and like you, mami, I had to put up with alot of him being nasty to me, too.....so thats hard. its like salt in a wound. But again, he doesnt do it anymore... its all about me and us, constantly showing me he loves me.Its like we are a new couple, how sick is that? How can an affair be the best thing that happens to your relationship? Am I crazy for thinking this?
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Avatar universal
Well said, mami. Happy pill, I will tell you it gets harder before it gets better. There were days that I thought I was going to go crazy. And like mami said , once it is out in the open they seem relieved and feel like it is over and they can move on yet now we have to deal with it and they just do not understand why we are not letting it go and moving on with the healing, all I can say is manage your obsessive thoughts. They will come but be in control of them. It is hard but doable. I have some journal posts as well if you want to see where I was and where I am now. Best wishes.
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145992 tn?1341345074
Well definitely both lovemykids and me know exactly how you feel and any other person who has been betrayed know how you feel.  I have a million journal entries on here set on private that I had written during my recovery time.  And believe me, I still am recovering even though it's been so long.  I don't think they will ever understand how we feel because to them it is "over".  They've gotten it off their chest, they still have us in their lives and so they don't understand that they left a lasting hole in our hearts that will take time to heal.  You can say, you broke my heart in two and then now we have stitched it back up so that it can be one again but it's still not healed.  If those stitches came off the heart would fall back into two pieces again.  I don't know if that's a corny analogy but I think it's true.  What used to anger me so much is that I felt frustrated and angry because he was over the affair.  He had let go of the other woman and emotional disconnected from her and recommited to me and he was happy about that.  The other woman was moving on, she was going on vacations, going to parties and opened up a match.com page to look for another man.  So in my mind I was furious.  Not that I was unhappy for them both moving on and moving away from each other but because it felt like they both were ok and I was the one left damaged for their selfish behaviors.  I had the thoughts of them two etched in my head, I had the memories of being abandoned by him and to go back and think about when he may or may not have been with her.  Thinking about him giving her all the love and attention and me getting none.  Thinking about how he just abandoned my during my pregnancy and made my experience tainted.  It's so hard for them to understand that.  But one of my best friends told me, that I chose to forgive him and if I am going to do that I have to try to let it go.  She said I don't know what their personal struggles were and whether deep down they feel complete hurt.  He probably feels ashamed and embarrassed and regretful for hurting me.  She was left heartbroken and knows she wasted time in her life that she can't get back and has to live with the fact that he lied to her to.  Made her feel like she was going to be with him and in the end, he chose you.  She said I allow them to make me feel like a victim, I'm giving them too much power over myself.  I have to take back the control and take charge of my happiness.  After she said that, I knew she was right.  I wasted a lot of time feeling sad and when I could've just started enjoying my life with my son and my fiance.  But it takes time to feel comfortable again with that person.  It does happen.  The next time you start thinking about things, try to walk away and distract yourself.  Or what I do is when I start thinking about a horrible moment in time, I think about something nice my fiance has done recently and so I know I made the right choice.   I wish we were there with you also, you will be ok, trust me.  It does get better.
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Avatar universal
Wow... thank you so much. Just reading your words and how similar they are to my own, and the feelings, made me cry!! Thank you so much for sharing...I will come here for the support I need....Today was a bad day.....I b itched about stupid crap like I usually do.....because I was thinking about it......to him, its over, to me, its still very raw, and real.... god, I wish you guys were "here" with me!!! nobody I know feels this way, at least that I know of......   night kiddos
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Avatar universal
We must have been posting at the same time, LOL!
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145992 tn?1341345074
Sorry I had to break mine into two because it was so long and then lovemykids got between them...lol.
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145992 tn?1341345074
He missed out on significant moments in our son's first year of life because he was too busy messing around.  He will never get that back and to this day that is his hugest regret.  I had to learn that I couldn't control what he does.  If he were to do it again, I can't stop him.  He has to be the one to understand the consequences of doing it again.  So I stopped allowing myself to be a victim to this affair.  I stopped letting my anger overpower my ability to move forward and be happy.  I will not allow anyone to make me sad or to make me so full of hatred.  Even though I still despise this woman and I still have my moments where I hate my fiance's actions.  I love who he's become because of his affair.  He's a much more happier, fun loving guy now.  He takes his family seriously now.  All I can say to you, is it takes time.  The first year after an affair I think is the hardest.  You have to repair your relationship, learn to rebuild the trust and to come to terms with your decisions to stay and make it work.  I know I struggled with that myself.  I let my pride jump right out the window when I said ok I will try to give this another shot.  I didn't want to look or feel stupid for giving him a second chance.  I didn't want to regret my decision or feel like a fool if he did it to me again.  But really the only one who would look like an idiot would be him.  You will be ok as long as your husband does everything in his power to make it up to you and to prove his fidelity going forward.  If he has patience with your mood swings.  I had to really learn to control my thoughts because if you continue to let your mind go back to moments, you will never be able to let it go.  That takes time to master though and even to this day I still find my mind wandering.  I just know how to quickly change my thought pattern.  Try reading the book "my husband's affair was the best thing that ever happened to me".  The woman who wrote it was on Dr. Phil and it gave me hope.  The one thing that helped me the most though was writing.  Every time I was struggling with a mood swing, I would sit down and write it all out.  Sometimes I would even write a letter to my fiance telling him how he made me feel.  It does help, and the therapy would help even more.  I wish you luck, and keep coming back here because the support I got here was extremely helpful.  It made me feel less alone.  Good luck.
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Avatar universal
Welcome aboard, We know how you feel. It will get better with time. I found out in July about my husbands infidelity and I am just now at a place where I am not consumed with thoughts of them together. We too have decided to work through this and we too have been together for 22 years Married for 19. It is a terrible thing that this has happened to you and your situation sounds a lot like mine except she was much younger but the whole friendship and appreciation thing was the cause and I am glad to see you take responsibility for your actions too that is a hard thing to do.  All I can say is try not to make him feel any worse then he already does. I would sabotage our healing just by dwelling on it. We would be having a good time and then I would bring it up and I could see the pain on his face. He does need to be willing to help you heal and talk through it but then there is a time to let it go. I still have bad days now and again but it does get better. We both worked on Dr. Phil McGraws book Relationship rescue together also, The 5 love Languages and the Love Dare program. A great web site for you ( helped me so much )is Mort Fetel.  I hope this helps.
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145992 tn?1341345074
I know exactly how you feel, believe me.  My fiance had an emotional and sexual affair for 2 years with an older woman.  I'm 32 and he's 33 and he had the affair while we were planning our wedding, when I was pregnant and not until I caught him when our son was 9 months old, did it end.  I had a feeling all that time that something wasn't right.  He had been very nasty to me for all that time and I was so unhappy, all we did was fight.  I know she did all the right things because he went to her and I'm sure complained to her all about me and so he made it easy for her to know what to do to keep him.  I was busy of course with all the planning and then with raising our son, so my attention wasn't directed towards him and he felt "neglected" so he said.  Either way I was so betrayed when I discovered his affair.  Not because I was surprised because I did have a feeling but because I just didn't expect it of him.  I had given him the gift of a child that I had never given anyone and it broke me into pieces thinking that I just made the biggest mistake of my life.  That now I was "stuck" with him because of our son and because I had trusted him like I have never trusted anyone in my life.  He had developed feelings for someone else and he had become friends with someone when he was supposed to be my bestfriend and me his.  This woman knew things about him that only I was supposed to know.  She knew about me, she knew about my child.  He spent a lot of time with her, even some holidays and he would tell me so many lies.  The cheating hurt but it was the lies that tore me apart.  How could I ever believe any word that ever came out his mouth when he lied so much.  Lied for so long.  When I found out about the affair, I kicked him out but he begged and begged for another chance.  He cried saying he wanted his family and she was a mistake.  I found that hard to believe because in my mind, if you regretted it so badly, then why carry it on for so long?  Why not have ended it and confessed when I had asked him so many times in the past?  At least I felt good knowing that I wasn't crazy and that I was right on with my suspicions.  But what now?  I have a family with him.  I have stepkids from him, who are now tied to me forever because I am the mother of their brother.  I hated him but at the same time, I loved him.  I also felt a little bit of feeling like "ha, he doesn't want you w hore".  After wasting her life on him for 2 years and falling in love with him, he now was rejecting her.  That felt good, like revenge.  She wanted to be with him and wanted him to leave me and she was so happy when it all came out because she thought she was going to get her wish but she lost.  But what exactly did she lose?  Because in my mind now, he wasn't the same man who I had fallen in love with.  The man I knew, never would've hurt me like this.  Not only is he different to me and our relationship different but now it has that stigma.  I can never say my man never cheated on me.  He was that, a cheater.  How do I ever trust him again.  He asked to go to counseling and he had rejected the idea of counseling prior to the affair coming to light but now he wanted to go.  So I took it all in.  I wondered if I could get past this whole thing.  Will I ever believe him again, would I ever be able to look at him the same way?  Now every time he was away from me I questioned if he was talking to her or seeing her behind my back.  But I agreed to try to go to counseling.  I didn't make any promises, and told him that I would see how things go.  I also pictured him with her non-stop and questioned every word that came out of his mouth.  I was suspicious when he had his cell phone, I would wonder if he was texting her every time he went to the bathroom.  It drove me nuts.  My mind was crazy, I was up and down all of the time.  One minute loving him and the next minute hating him.  Our fights would be so escalated because of my anger that I would get physical with him.  We did go to counseling and it did help us immensely.  I realized that we lacked communication all along and we stopped trying.  We both gave up on one another.  Instead of me going to a different person like he did, I had built a wall to protect myself from his mistreatment.  I felt like this happened for a reason.  It has changed our relationship, it isn't better, it's different.  It's been a year and a half since I discovered the affair and let me tell you, we are better than ever.  He is a much better man because of all of this.  He realized what he had and what he could've lost.  He makes efforts all the time to show me he loves me.  I now get all the attention and affection that had been missing from our relationship.  We have a strong bond and communication has gotten a million times better.  We've just grown as a couple.  He doesn't take me for granted and he knows if he were to ever do this to me again, it would be over.  It took me a long time to actually forgive him.  I never forget, and I think that's what still makes it somewhat hard to get passed, because you don't forget, but you can learn to forgive.  My fiance showed remorse and regret and that's what allowed me to continue.  Although, don't get me wrong, we nearly broke up numerous times during the healing process.  I had a tough time trusting him and he would get tired of being under a microscope constantly.  He wanted me to "get over it" and he didn't understand that it wasn't so easy.  He didn't get that he destroyed me.  Not until I realized that he was hurting just as bad for what he did, that I really learned to let it go.  
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