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How does a couple resume a "normal" life after infidelity?

15K views 82 replies 26 participants last post by  always_hopefull 
#1 ·
After one spouse has an affair, and both are working toward having a better marriage, how do we get back towards living a "normal" life. It's been 9 months now, and I feel that while working on our marriage we have focused all our energy on the devestation it has cause our marriage. I read so many posts that say that couples are still having family life, dinners together, all while not bringing up the issues (or something to that effect). It's like this is always over our heads, set backs or not.

Yes, we spend as much family time as we can, but the dark cloud never seems to leave our lives.
 
#5 ·
You have to come to terms with a new normal.....the marriage, the normal you had before the affair(s) is gone - it's dead and you cannot resurrect it. You and your spouse need to grieve and morn the old and build a new one but you have to accept that is will not be as innocent, pure, trusting, and clean as before.

You take your scar tissue with you.
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#6 ·
Yep, it's all about time. We're almost a year and a half out from D-Day #1, but didn't start TRULY recovering and reconciling til she acknowledged and owned everything she did, most of which she'd refused to see as harmful to us (for instance, refused to see her long-standing EA *as* an EA), ultimately resulting in a D-Day #2 and her having to very closely examine a lifetime of behaviors. That was just April of this year. We've made a lot of progress, but there's still a lot of work to do, and the old "normal" will never exist again.
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#7 ·
Working, if by "normal", you mean back to the way it was , pre-affair, that is never going to happen. You will have to create a new "normal". The infidelity is now a part of your life, and your husband's. He will ALWAYS remember that you cheated and when given the choice, chose another man, and you will ALWAYS remember that YOU were the one who did this terrible thing. Everything you and he thought was "normal" is now a bitter memory. So what do you do about it? You re-commit to each other, you prove your worth to him, and you make new and better memories to replace the old ones. An analogy. Take a picture frame, and YOU put a sign in it saying, " I am a cheating, evil wh*re", and hang it on the wall of your bedroom. Everytime you prove something good to your husband, you get to erase a letter. Every time he thinks that you are showing love, loyalty, and honesty. HE gets to erase a letter. But, he also gets to add a letter back, if you backslide. At first you will look at it every time you go into the room, after a while it will become like any other piece of your furnishings, and by then, it will be an empty frame, with no letters at all, and you can throw it away. And, I truly hope that you can put a new picture in it's place. One of a loving, loyal , deeply happy, couple.
 
#9 ·
I would think that one of the toughest htings to get over, in cases where the cheater is busted, at least, is the absolute knowledge that you are second choice, that if not for the consequences, your spouse would have jettisoned you,pronto.
It must just seem so weird knowing that it is only the loss and the consequences(or guilt) that motivated your spouse to stay, vs actually liking you.
 
#10 ·
I don't believe any one of you, who say you have normal----The betrayed is always facing the elephant in the room, when sex occurs, is always looking over their shoulder, and becomes very alert---if anything out of the ordinary occurs

Please do not any of you betrayed's say otherwise, cuz you are LYING if you do.

Nothing, will ever be the same----it just becomes, what the betrayed is willing to tolerate.
 
#11 ·
This is a new marriage with no more "blind trust". You must accept this and stop comparing this to the old one you had. That marriage is gone, you destroyed it.

And, no matter what, do not blame your H for not treating you the same way. You changed him and his perspective for good. Just try making the most out of what you still have.
 
#12 ·
BTW, you cheating doesn't allow him to continually verbally abuse 24/7 though, or physically abuse you. There has to come a time where you have to draw the line on how much you can take.

It's a fine line, but one that you have to establish on your own, everyone has their own tolerance levels.
 
#37 · (Edited)
This is probably what I should have referred to when making my orignal post, I never wanted to say it for fear that I would only be justifying and minimizing my own past selfish behavior. But for the last 9 months he HAS been verbally abusive, and I have taken it all since I knew I deserved it. I didn't know when it was crossing the line, i just know I feel berated and belittled for what I have done, and that's what I mean by regaining a "normal" life. He HATES me through and through. I can't fight back, I feel as though I deserve it all. What hurts is that is has taken his frustrations on our kids, and they are now showing the effects of both my affair, and his reaction to it.

and it is 24/7
 
#13 ·
It's always going to be a work in progress. I'm about a year and a half out and there are stretches of up to 4 days or so that what happened doesn't cross my mind. You reach a point where you decide to move past what happened or not.
 
#21 ·
Working,

I have followed your threads with great interest because I see the love and effort you are putting into the relationship after D-Day. One thing you have to remember is that every time something occurs it "freezes" the recovery and building the new marriage stalls for a bit. I believe that you aren't far removed from informing the OMW about the affair. And recently you had contact with the OM even though you had a NC in place. These are setbacks that stall creating the new marriage for a bit. Setbacks like these are unfortunate but not unforeseen. But they are also opportunities for you both to open up your hearts and grow together as a couple.

It has been almost 20 years since my W had an A. There are times when she is late or I can't contact her on her cell and that thought pops in my head "could she be with another man again?" Of course she has done nothing wrong in all those years so I have the ability to clear those thought out and replace them with many years of trust rebuilding acts. But those thought are still there.

I can say that our marriage is not the same. It can't be. I like to use the analogy of a ceramic dish. If you drop it it will shatter. You collect the pieces and super glue them back together. The dish will be stronger as the glue is stronger than the original ceramic but the cracks are always visible.

My marriage is not the innocent childlike relationship it once was. But these years or sharing and caring has built something better. We know so much more about ourselves and each other. I am closer to my wife now than I ever was and we grow closer with each passing day. I cannot say that I am glad the A happened as I would not wish that pain on my worst enemy. What I will say is that something wonderful has grown out of a terrible tragic circumstance and I treasure my marriage more today than I did before the A took place.

Give it time. It gets better.
 
#34 ·
Regardless of the angst being displayed here, this is a very interesting concern that Working has and should be treated a little more seriously than it is now. IMO. "Normalcy", is different things to different people. When I was in combat in Afghanistan, normal was constant fear, dirt , blood and pain, so it shows that a person can get accustomed to anything. In Working's situation, "normal", will have to be a new beginning with Working as the emotional heavy-lifter, and her husband at the top of her agenda, considering how the affair went, she can ask for no more than that, for the foreseeable future
 
#35 ·
Even when the BS is at the top of the agenda again, they will never forget that someone else was there when he/she should not have been. The BS can never get back the marriage that he/she had. They will have to try to build a new relationship, but it won't be the same and it won't be easy. If working's H liked what his marriage was pre A , as I did, that will make it harder for him to accept what has changed. She will need to be very patient with her H. Best of luck to them both.
 
#40 ·
It may be time for the two of you to go back to couples counseling. If he's unwilling and the verbal abuse continues unabated, then you've got some serious thinking to do if living in a toxic environment is good for the two of you. A separation may be required to help the two of you heal.
 
#41 ·
Yes, we spend as much family time as we can, but the dark cloud never seems to leave our lives.
I don't see the dark cloud leaving very quickly. But you two should be working on building the positives more than rehashing the negatives. He needs to process what has happened, and he needs to see proof of your sincerity and trustworthiness. That is part of the process.

To move forward you need some direction. Is he open to relationship books and the corny exercises in them? I really like "5 Love Languages", "Getting the Love you Want" (book and workbook), and "Passionate Marriage". These kinds of books provide a process to rebuild intimacy and trust.

Healing the hurt just gets him back to zero from the very negative place he is now. Work on building the positive side, too.
 
#42 ·
I have wasted my time on a troll. I thought that Working... together was a real poster with a real problem. Well, Working, I hope you had some fun. I call bul*sh*t on this last post. You NEVER mentioned ANYTHING about abuse until Cheatinghubby's post. So now you have a new way of spinning your made-up story. I won't post on any of Working...together's threads anymore. I hate trolls!!!
 
#50 · (Edited)
I'm not a troll, and you know it, and I never wanted to post that he has been verbally abusive for fear of the lashing I would get here about not saying it earlier, maybe I didn't realize it was abusive at the time, have you thought about that??????

I have always come here with good intentions, how could you say that I am a troll, that really hurts. Saying I hope "I had some fun", are you kidding, whey the hell would I come here for fun? I need help, and I know it.

Would you like to see the holes in my walls?

don't worry I won't post on your threads anymore.
 
#44 ·
In some cases the BS does become abusive. They are trying to make the WS feel the pain that they feel. Unfortunately the WS already usually feels so bad that instead of resisting the abuse they accept it as "just rewards" for their behavior. But this creates a self perpetuating cycle...abuse by BS...accept the abuse by WS...more abuse by BS and so on. In short this is not healthy for either of you.

I would ask your H to return to MC and go over this issue. If you think he will react badly just tell him you both need a safe place to talk after the stress of the last week or so and then bring it up in counseling.

I truly hope you both can continue to move forward in your R. You seem like a very good person that made a very bad choice and from your description your H sounds like a good man who is caught up in a web of emotion and is having trouble processing everything.

I wish you all the best.
 
#46 ·
Thor, don't waste your time. At frist she was a independent woman trying to overcome her affair, without much sympathy for her husband, then whencalled on it , she suddenly becomes more empathetic and caring. Whe she describes hte work being done and the telling of the OMW, she gets called for her interference, so then she no longer interferes. When it starts to die down, she brings up an alleged text from the OM just to keep the thread alive, and now she is a poor abused woman. I think she is a troll, bored , sitting in front of her pc and laughing at us. And to top it off, now she tells us that they have had problems before the affair nand haven't been intimate. Geez, fool me once , shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
 
#51 ·
Did I say I was a poor abused woman Bad????

I said that through his justified anger he has attacked me verbally, I'm not feeling sorry for myself, just stating that I did not know it was crossing the line, I know I deserved his anger, but when is it too much. I'm beaten down, and I still wanted to work on my marriage as much as I could.
 
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