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One of the things I’m struggling with today is how unreal this all feels. I recently found out my husband started having an affair in January (although I originally found out about the affair in May, but he lied about when it started). In February we had this weird fight seemingly out of nowhere, where he said he was so unhappy and felt like we were living our lives in parallel. I was blindsided, because that was not my experience at all. Of course, this all makes more sense now knowing that he was already falling in love with someone else.

But it’s that blindsided feeling that is really needling me today. That feeling where your perception of reality is upturned, and now you can’t even trust your own memories. So many moments I look back on where I thought we were happy, but meanwhile he says the past 10 (!!) years have been rough for him. What?!?? Sure, we had our tough patches, and yes, life has thrown us some really shitty challenges in the past few years (cancer, death, grief, infertility…). But to look back at the past decade and sum all of our experiences together as a net negative? That hurts so, so deeply.

A year ago, I would have said he was the only person who fully knows me. The only person who I share my truest self with. That we had a love that was rare, and that other people coveted. That we loved each other and liked spending time together. That we made each other happy. That even when life was painful and hard, I felt comforted knowing we were in it together.

How could I have been so wrong?

Hello-

I am so sorry you are hurting, betrayal is such a mindjob.

For what it’s worth, I do not think you were wrong in what you were experiencing.

Wayward spouses tend to create narratives to help them cope with the cognitive dissonance of having an affair. We reshape history so we can feel better about doing what we wanted to do.

And I do not think he was actually falling I love with someone else. But, I believe rarely do affairs create love. They create a paradigm where there is a push/pull dynamic due to the instability of it. And those highs and lows push crazy endorphins/adrenaline through the system as each thing happens.

Even worse, a lot of time what they are escaping through the affair are often feelings of depression, making those highs seem even more life affirming and it creates bond with a person they haven’t experienced one lick of life with who they can project things into that makes the escapism more powerful.

I am not minimizing what he has done or what the fallout should be—I am just telling you that affairs are not what they seem, and the rewriting of marital history is a typical tactic.

Likely you had a shared experience with someone more complicated than you, who has a lot of work to do on the relationship he has with his values.

There are some great articles out there by dr. Frank Pittman on romantic infidelity. There is a predictable psychological reaction humans have when they choose to have the affair. It leads a person to now have to address not only how and why they could commit such a disastrous betrayal—but they also now have a whole physical layer to deal with in producing and living with a healthy amount of happy chemicals in the brain.

This intellectualization doesn’t take from the fact your husband chose to have an affair, conducted it in secret, and has major work to do on himself, simply it’s I don’t believe affairs are what they seem to be.

The morning of my D-Day was your typical normal day. I came downstairs, made us coffee, I was eating breakfast, my wife came downstairs ready to leave for work, grabbed her coffee, gave me a kiss, and she was off to work

While eating breakfast I found a property listing for some land in tennessee, we had been working on this dream of buying some land, building a retirement home, and growing old there together

I sent it to her, she replied with I LOVE IT!

Later on my phone beeped reminding me to check to see if my wife had sent a picture via text to someone a couple of weeks back. While she was flipping through her phone one day I saw a picture of her in a green dress that I had not seen and when I questioned her on it her body language changed and I could instantly tell she was uncomfortable. She came up with a lame excuse which told me something was wrong so I set a reminder in my phone to see if she had texted anybody. I had forgotten about it but thankfully I had set a reminder

I checked verizon, nothing unusual, and I almost wrote it off to paranoia but I decided to check her tablet and that's when I discovered she was sexting with a coworker, the police officer that works at the school. Luckily her tablet and phone were synced and that's why I was able to see the messages

27 years of trust evaporated. The best way I can describe it is that what I felt was complete emptiness. I didn't have a clue before now that anything was wrong.

What made it even worse is when I confronted her, there was Zero remorse. There were no tears, no apologies, no begging for forgiveness, just anger and dismissal. She said it's just harmless flirting, nothing more, I have not crossed any lines, you are giving this way too much weight. After an hour conversation all I got was I'm sorry this upsets you, and it was devoid of any sympathy. The next morning she was still angry and I was crushed

So like you said, being blindsided when you believe everything is perfect? How do you ever again believe that the hugs, the kisses, the I love you's, the I can't wait for us to spend the rest of our lives together, how do you ever again have any confidence that what you think is genuine is genuine?

Is this another Act? Is my spouse just leading me along until it's convenient for him/her to execute their exit plan? When can I stop being suspicious? When can I start trusting their words again? When was the last time he / she said I love you and it was sincere?

I am at 29 months and honestly I feel pretty flat about the relationship. I'm hoping my feelings for the relationship grow stronger but I'm in no hurry. Is this as good as it will ever be? Right now I do not see myself ever allowing myself to be so deep into someone that I would be crushed if they cheated or left.

The WS's, they never give any thought to the consequences. They never think if / when this is discovered my partner is going to be destroyed. Or maybe they do but the dopamine overrules the thinking. I asked my wife multiple times what did you think would happen if I found out and for months her response was I never thought about it. Finally she admitted, or fabricated, that she thought I would just get upset for a little while and eventually I would get over it and eventually things would just go back to normal. Once again taken for granted and kicked to second place.

On D-Day while talking to my wife she spat out you are always unhappy and you are always angry. I guess this was her way of trying to convince me that it was my fault. There seems to be a pattern with WS's, they tried to convince the BS that the WS did what they did because of the BS. It's your fault that I cheated.

I too believed that I could trust my wife with anything. I told her things about me that could be used to damage my standing in the community and my family, nothing illegal, just personal stuff. In hindsight I regret this. Now I feel like a fool at times for trusting to this degree but that's what we are supposed to be able to do. And once they destroy this trust, is it possible to ever get back to that level?

At the end of September 2023 I came home to find this huge happy 20th anniversary I love you sign in the front yard. It was our 20th wedding anniversary. It's out of the ordinary for my wife to do something like this, something creative, and I was touched. April 4th 2024 I discovered what she was doing, so that's what, 6 months later? When I asked when she started talking to him her response was I don't know :/ When I asked if she was already talking to him on our anniversary her answer was I don't know. That destroyed anniversaries for me. She later changed her answer to I don't think so, but it was too late, the damage was done.

And as usual I have rattled on way too long. I wish I had words of wisdom that could help you. I wish there was a way for us to know that one day we would feel 100% comfortable trusting the one person who we thought would always be by our side, would always have our back, would never do anything to hurt us. If they turn out to be the one person who hurt us in a way that no one else could.

Here’s my two cents.

I honestly believe most married people are content, pretty happy, life ain’t half bad mentality.

Until they meet the OM/OW.

Then they become unhappy and miserable and misunderstood. All justifications to allow them to rationalize the affair.

Everyone deserves to be happy. But not at the expense of hurting others.

My H told me he was unhappy for 18 months before the affair started. That’s just crap - he wasn’t unhappy with me - he was unhappy with himself, his career, not meeting some goals he set for himself etc.

But I ended up being blamed for all of it.

Again just my opinion but I honestly think that the "unhappiness" is conveniently manufactured.

How could I have been so wrong?

YOU weren't. This happens almost...if not all of the time with a Wayward. By rewriting the marital history it makes what they did seem justifiable. It NEVER is!

My H started his confession about his A with the words so many Betrayeds hear..."I love you like I have never loved anyone else, but I don't think I am in love with you anymore". He then said that he needed passion in his life and that he hadn't felt that for me in a long time .

I actually went and HUGGED him after he said this!! He had been working alone overseas for 9 1/2 weeks...and I thought he was just fatigued from the time difference because he was just back for 2 days before he confessed. As soon as I found out that he had an A...I went from hugging him to having NO emotion whatsoever when I told him the M was over. I then calmly got up from the sofa...told him he needed to message the adultery co-conspirator so that they could start making plans for their future because we were DONE. Then I left the living room and went into our bedroom to give him privacy. Surprisingly...instead of messaging his new lurve now that he was a free man and could be with the one he really was in love with...he came into the bedroom and asked if he could lay down with me in our bed . Oddly enough...it was this action that made me think that maybe the M wasn't over...and within the hour we were talking about R.

Later on...when discussing this day...my H told me that he thought I would be devastated and cry a lot when he confessed. But he was very much SHOCKED that I showed NO emotion whatsoever. I blindsided HIM!! He said that when I left the living room his heart SANK. He suddenly realized that he was very much IN LOVE with me ! He told me he didn't know what to do...all he knew was that he couldn't bear the thought of being without me...and wanted nothing more than to be next to me . This...after being home for TWO DAYS and barely touching me!!!

I can't tell you what is in your husband's head...but the rewriting of the marital history is very common for Waywards. It still SUCKS to hear them say something like that though!!

I was a cop at the time of my d-day, working daily with people who did their best to hide stuff from me, yet I was completely blindsided when I found out…

There is an old joke that goes something like this:
A man needs a hammer to hammer a nail to hang a picture. He searches for his hammer and get’s all moody about having lost it. Decides to ask his grumpy neighbor to lend him a hammer. On the way he’s thinking the neighbor will chide him for not having a hammer, will harangue him about taking care if it, voice concerns about if he will return it… So when he knocks and the neighbor answers he shouts out "you can keep your f#####g hammer! I never wanted it", and storms away.

I never said it was a good joke…

In some ways your husband is like that man. He has a problem and while contemplating how to fix it, places the blame on something else.

In some ways this is actually good…
I think that MAYBE he was feeling guilty about the affair, and was trying to justify it to himself. Explain "why" he had to do something he knew all along was wrong. That’s why he falls back to the excuse of being unhappy and parallel lives. It beats the more likely "I am having an affair, and therefore I can’t really commit to the marriage and that’s causing a rift between us that I can’t really explain the cause of to you. But I still think it’s YOUR fault".
It might actually indicate he has a concience, and knows he’s treading on it.

I read in your older posts that the two of you are attending couples therapy. Still going?

I want to make a couple of suggestions:

You can accept accountability for the state of your marriage AS FAR as you are made aware of the issues and how you respond. So like if your husband made an effort 12 months ago to woo you, something like tried to get you out for a walk, tried to make time for the both of you, suggested a weekend getaway at a romantic BnB or whatever… and you constantly turned him down or rescheduled or blew it off… then that’s your fault for damage in the marriage. You ignored a message.
Same if he addressed financial issues, wanted to plan vacations, suggested you two go to the gym together or whatever. If he made consistent attempts to change things and you ignored them… your fault.

However – it’s NEVER your fault that he had an affair, and diverting cause for the affair to marital issues is a big no-no from the MC and your husband.
Yes – if you ignored his requests or demands or didn’t show the marriage the respect it deserves (btw – that’s mutual…) then it gave him a good valid reason to discuss the issue and demand change. But to go have an affair? No. Never.

If your MC makes any suggestions that your actions led to the affair… Counter right away. Ask him what he would be telling a rape-victim suffering from victim-guilt. Would he be telling her that yes, her short dress or cleavage contributed to the rape, or that since she had both the lobster, the expensive wine and a desert her date had a logical and valid expectation for some sex? That the rapist had some valid reason for getting his needs met that way?

I think he might be – intentionally or not – playing on your sense of guilt. He was pushed to an affair because of your infertility and your focus on not tending to him is what he’s trying to push as a logical reason, mitigating his actions.
For example: If not having kids was such a major issue for him he could discuss options with you. Those options could be anything from seeking medical options, fostering, adoption, surrogate mother, indirectly adopting through financial support a dozen third-worlds orphans, accepting a childless existence… or divorce. Nowhere in that list is the reason "because we can’t have kids it mitigates my need to get my ego tickled (as well as some other parts…) by this woman who isn’t my wife".

Please – Stand firm on that the marriage might have had issues, and be open to dealing with them. But NEVER allow him (or the MC) to hide the infidelity behind those issues.