How do you know whether to reconcile or let it go?

[Lvsdogs]

It's so hard. Sometimes I think we are fooling ourselves by even trying. I don't trust him. I don't know if I ever will. I see him trying, but it's never good enough for me. We are three hours apart now.

 

How did you learn to trust again? How did you know whether it was worth fighting for?

 

We don't have children. We weren't married but had planned on it.

 

When I think of being with someone else, I feel ill. When we broke up for two months, I got asked out twice. Both men were perfect on paper, but when I thought of being with them, I longed for my BF. We tried not talking or texting or seeing each other, but we couldn't stay away.

 

We had the best love story. We are both widowed and met through a site much like this but for widows and support. We instantly connected, decided to meet, and six years later, I was living with him and planning a life. Why did he have to ruin everything? It wasn't even a physical affair. Why did he need so much emotional connections with other women when I was right there begging for his attention and for him to talk to me?

 

I will never understand how he could ruin such a great love. We are miserable without each other. Not to mention, his son who I bonded with, is lost without me and I without him. He was the closest thing to ever having children of my own. I loved him like my own. He didn't just hurt me with his selfish, stupid behavior.

 

How do you move forward and rebuild? Or how do you end it?

[snappytomcat]

im sorry you are going through this,i know the pain you are in,as my husband of 20 years had a 3 year long distance affair,with a obese older unattractive woman,i couldn't believe that she was worth throwing away 20 years,and then on dday,he begged me to stay and go to mc with him,i had one foot out the door,but our counselor said not to make any decisions in my emotional state.

so I took her advice,and here we are in recovery 9 months since dday,its been a hard long road,and we still have a long road ahead,but the good days outweigh the bad,i didn't think I could ever trust him again,and he had to be an open book,which he has,and the trust is slowly returning,i will never trust him like I did before,but its there,and that amazes me,if you would have asked me 9 months ago,if I would ever be able to trust him?i would have said no fuc**ng way.

only you can decide if if recovery is what you want,but yes its possible to recover,and be happy with the ws,our old marriage has died,but we have become stronger together

take care of yourself,and good luck in whatever you decide to do

[Zenstudent]

Lvsdogs, how old are you?

 

I would normally say, that if you're not married, don't have kids together and don't own any property together, just get out. The more intertwined your lives are, the harder it is to split. He showed you what he's capable of, this capability won't disappear just because you marry him.

[Zimber]

It's so hard. Sometimes I think we are fooling ourselves by even trying. I don't trust him. I don't know if I ever will. I see him trying, but it's never good enough for me. We are three hours apart now.

 

How did you learn to trust again? How did you know whether it was worth fighting for?

 

We don't have children. We weren't married but had planned on it.

 

When I think of being with someone else, I feel ill. When we broke up for two months, I got asked out twice. Both men were perfect on paper, but when I thought of being with them, I longed for my BF. We tried not talking or texting or seeing each other, but we couldn't stay away.

 

We had the best love story. We are both widowed and met through a site much like this but for widows and support. We instantly connected, decided to meet, and six years later, I was living with him and planning a life. Why did he have to ruin everything? It wasn't even a physical affair. Why did he need so much emotional connections with other women when I was right there begging for his attention and for him to talk to me?

 

I will never understand how he could ruin such a great love. We are miserable without each other. Not to mention, his son who I bonded with, is lost without me and I without him. He was the closest thing to ever having children of my own. I loved him like my own. He didn't just hurt me with his selfish, stupid behavior.

 

How do you move forward and rebuild? Or how do you end it?

Agree with Zen.

I read your first post and have to say ... how odd.

Will you get over all this if you two reconcile ... depends on him (and a little you).

The real question which Zen answered is should you?

This guy is not only dishonest, but he's a mess.

 

The thing I would worry about (so easy to be objective when it's someone else's problem ... I should answer my own posts :s) is often when you spend so much time/energy/heart helping someone through their issues/obesity/heartbreak/loss/financial crisis ... is that they more often than not skip off wanting to shed the last link to they're former problematic self (that would be the partner that saw them through this).

This of course is not 100%, but it's a real risk. How many risks do we need before we say "nope too risky".

 

The kid part though? That sucks. I had a couple relationships with single moms going through the stages of recreation after divorce and I think way more about the children now than I ever do the woman that introduced me to them.

 

Z

[gettingstronger]

Here is how I decided- I knew I loved him and knew I would forever regret not at least trying reconciliation-its been a long, painful, difficult process but we are turning the corner and I am happy that I have tried to R-

 

Not going to lie- I have asked myself the same questions- why would I want to be with a cheater- why did he do the things he did-in the end its not so much the answers that matter but if you can handle the betrayal

 

Good luck and stay strong-

[Lvsdogs]

Zen,

 

I am 40. I know there's nothing to split and no children, but it's still so difficult. I keep wondering why it is we can't make the break completely. Just when I'm about to lose it and feel like I have had enough (because all we do is argue), he says something that makes it better. Or we see each other. And I feel a glimmer of hope. I know he does too. He tells me anyone else would have left him by now or he will thank me for standing by him trying to help him or tell me how much he needs me and how he can't forgive himself for messing up such a great thing. With us. and with his kids.

 

As far as I know, there's been nothing going on since I uncovered what i beleive to be all of it. And unfortunately, Zimber, yes, he is a complete mess. And he has used that word himself along with "loser," "a total wreck," "a joke," and "completely lost." He was a normal responsible well-respected man and in a period of two years, he went beserk. I can't understand anything he did. Emotional affairs, porn star gift-buying obsession, and I probably didn't mention his venture to a strip club when i was out of town visiting family where he spent $1400 in a matter of hours. He was so ashamed, he didn't even get out of bed the next day and continuously texted me how much he needed me and how depressed he was. There was something terribly wrong, and I knew it then.

 

I guess I hold on bc 1. I know I am co-dependent. I fully admit that. And 2.Part of the co-dependency is I want to help him get back to the man he used to be.

 

i know he hates himself. I know he's ashamed of all he did. He knows that the people that love him and have known him like me noticed a dramatic change in him over the past couple years to a person we don't recogonize. I drive myself crazy trying to figure out why he would do these things. He can't even answer that himself. I've read books about people in severe depression that latch onto porn and sex addiction in ways to counter the depression, and I see a lot of those signs in him. I know he's severely depressed and always has been. I noticed it got worse during those years he was acting out.

 

I know I sound like I'm making excuses for him and maybe I am. I know sometimes people are just jerks and do stupid things. But he wasn't.

 

I'm scared to get hurt again. If I take a chance, i put myself in that position, and I don't think I could handle it again. I'm barely handling it now. I want to believe him when he says he no longer feels out of control like he did the past two years and me finding all this out has crashed him back to earth.

 

I also know getting married would solve nothing. I wanted that when I thought we were gold, but even if we work it out completely, marriage is something that is way off in the future. I'm sad bc of how close we were to that. We were a family. Now sides are taken, and everyone hates everyone.

 

Ugh. Thanks for your responses. So glad I found this site.

[thummper]

But aren't you glad you found out about his infidelity BEFORE you got married and had his children? Count yourself lucky that he showed this side of his personality now and not later.

[mangetout]

I really do feel for you OP. I know it can be hard trying to figure out how someone could do this to someone they love. The unfortunate answer always seem to be that deep down, this person just didn't love you. It hurts, I've been there as well and it is heartbreaking..but it is also the reality.

 

I do not mean to sound harsh to you, but let me put this another way: he might love you, but he is not IN love with you. If he was in love, that love would of been able to sustain him and prevent him from doing what he did. Unfortunately, it's really just as simple as that. When push came to shove and this person had a chance to really show if they were truly loyal to you? They could not do it. It sucks, but at least you found out now..at least now you can give yourself a chance to find a guy who can truly love you.

 

 

Sorry but I disagree. You can hurt others unintentionally when you are too self absorbed. But you can still be madly in love with your partner at the same time. Its called compartmentalizing.

 

 

I believe that the OP's partner was very in love with her. But he clearly suffers from very poor boundaries which needs to be addressed.

 

 

OP its a tough decision to make. I wish you all the best

[bubbaganoosh]

It's so hard. Sometimes I think we are fooling ourselves by even trying. I don't trust him. I don't know if I ever will.

 

How do you move forward and rebuild? Or how do you end it?

 

In my opinion, this is how I gauge the situation. I've been burned big time and if there isn't trust, then there is no relationship.

 

I made my mind up that I will not live a life where I have to go 24/7 always wondering what she's doing, where she's at, who she's with.

 

I'm not a cop or a PI and don't want to be and if that's what it comes down to, then IMO it's not worth it. If it was me, I would move on to prevent any further hurting.

[Lvsdogs]

I didn't mean to start a thread war btw anyone here. Just asking opinions.

 

I will say that I do know he loves me and is in love with me. There's no question about that. He has a lot of personal emotional issues and he's made some major mistakes. He has said that bc he wasn't having a physical affair, that in the back of his mind, he didn't feel this was as bad. But he did say, he absolutely knew it wasn't right.

 

Therapy is helping him unravel a lot of his issues. He has said that many of things he did he can't understand himself. I try not to let myself think he wasn't attracted to me or I wasn't exciting enough bc I know it had nothing to do with me.

 

I know he wants to do the right thing. I haven't found any other things since I found out everything. Even so, I still have trust issues. This is all hard for me to digest. If I knew that he would never do these things again, I would feel so much better about what to do. However, no one can predict the future. No one here deserves what's happened to us. Sometimes you hurt people you love. I never thought it was a question of love, just deeper issues on his part. We are hanging on by a thread at the moment.

 

Thanks again for all your comments. My friends are sick of listenting to me.

[janedoe67]

OP, with no children and nothing to split, my gut says to move on, or at least begin the process of splitting, which MAY wake him up for real.

 

That said, YOU know your SO better than anyone here. Aside from the "always" that A's are ALWAYS wrong...not everything in infidelity is an "always" or "never," including the idea that a WS "never" really loves the BS.

 

The bottom line is that he has chosen to betray you, and he needs to do enormous amounts of inside and outside action-oriented work in order to make amends and regain your trust.

[oldshirt]

At it's core, dating is an interview and tryout process. It is doing research to see if someone is the right candidate to bond to legally and have a home and family with. You do a variety of things in a variety of circumstances with them and get to know them and know their background and history and see if they will be a good match for you going into the future.

 

 

It's just like a job interview and a background check. You check them out and they check you out to see if you both are a good match for each other. During that interview, background check and probationary period neither party is obligated to the other and either party can terminate the relationship without cause, consequence or prejudice.

 

 

In this particular interview process you have discovered he is a cheater, has porn issues and stuffs large amounts of money down stripper's G-strings when you aren't around.

 

 

For all you know he hasn't "changed" over the last couple years, it's that he hasn't been able to maintain the façade of being a decent person for the last couple years. That's why we date people for a reasonable period of time. Anyone can hide their true colors for awhile.

 

 

You have no commitment here. You are not legally, morally or ethically bound to him in any way shape or form. If you move forward with him and marry him now, you will know full well how he is and what he is capable of. That will be your responsibility then.

[fellini]

Aside from issues of infidelity, taking your concept of love, the number of marriages in this world is WAY TOO HIGH. Come on, "amount of love"? We can measure our love in teaspoons like Prufrock?

 

What ever happened to quality? Does anyone really believe that marriage occurs because two people found the "most love" they will find in another?

If you do any LIGHT reading on infidelity you will come to the conclusion that this interpretation of infidelity is completely jaded, has no basis in reality, but might describe undesirable people at best.

If you do any HEAVY reading on infidelity you will know that there are some really complex things going on that need to be addressed before making a decision. And those things do not have to do with s/he cheated, plain and simple, marriage over.

 

I hate to tell you this, but people in love do not have affairs. That is kind of the exact opposite of love and respect

 

Actually people in LOVE do HAVE affairs. That's why they are called affairs, and that is why we have words like, forgiveness, reconciliation, recovery, triggers, intrusions, flipflop, rebound, split-self, fog, cocaine-high, LTR, ONS, cake-eating, remorse, guilt, renew vows, D-Day, MC, among others. This vocabulary is essential because it encapsulates what is actually going on in affairs that do not belong to ANY ONE OF US BUT RATHER THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF INFIDELITY across the population. Infidelity is not about ONE person and his ONE choice. Yes, people in love ("in") love sometimes do step outside of the marriage. If in doing so, if makes you feel so much better to say there is no love, all the power to you. Experience and history do not bear this out for the rest.

 

No, it's called just plain being a selfish coward who doesn't have the balls to leave and will instead just cheat. If this guy is so self absorbed he doesn't see how screwing around will hurt this person..there is no love there.

 

Or rather, there is not ENOUGH love there, not the amount of love a marriage should have. A persons true colors come out when the chips are down, if this guy was having problems in his marriage, had a chance to cheat, but chose to be a man and not do it? That is love, that is respect. If he couldn't do that? Nope, just a sleazeball. It's real easy to be faithful when happy, the true test is being faithful when UNHAPPY. You know, that whole, for better or WORSE part in the vows? It's an important part. The vow doesn't go "for better, but not worse, because if I'm unhappy then screw you my needs come first".

Edited March 30, 2014 by fellini

[pteromom]

I want to believe him when he says he no longer feels out of control like he did the past two years

 

You are smart not to believe him.

 

This may be the way he feels now. But what happens when his life goes out of control - as it always will from time to time?

 

He hasn't learned any new methods to cope, so he's going to go back to his salve - sex/porn addiction. That's what he knows.

 

I am not adverse to you trying again, but if he really wants to move forward, he needs to get into therapy and work through his issues, so that he has the tools to be strong when life gets crazy.

 

That is the only way I would start over. And it WOULD be starting over, not continuing from where you are now.

[William]

Due to use of some pejorative language and self-reporting of such, a few posts have been deleted and I'll invite members to either negotiate a cease-fire or use the ignore list. Thanks!