# How to move on and actually reconcile...?



## Ciren84 (May 4, 2015)

Hello, 


TLDR: I need help and support working through my husband's affair. How do I stop obsessing over the details? How do I stop replaying them over and over to the point where I make myself sick? How do I trust him - that he's told me everything, that he's truly remorseful, and that he will really never do this again? He is not the person I thought he was and this has shaken me to the core. How do I move past this and forgive? I'm pleading for advice and reassurance that there's hope - for my sanity and my marriage. I would love to hear how others were able to reconcile. I'd love to know that it's possible to heal. Thank you all so much for your help, any that you can offer.

Lengthy back story:
I found out about a month and a half ago that my husband of 4 years (couple/lived together for 10) had been having an online cyber/emotional affair since the beginning of the year, about 4 months total. I am devastated. I found out shortly after D day that I am pregnant. We have a 3 year old daughter and have been planning to have another for quite some time. The timing is terrible, and I can honestly say that I am not the least bit happy about this baby considering the timing and discovery. It breaks my heart to say that - we had been planning this for so long.

The affair was with a remote coworker. He claims that they never met in person (we are in WA, and she in CA - his work is remote so they met as such). After a few months, she sought him out and friended him on Facebook. It was less than a month before the messages between them turned in appropriate. He started the sexual dialogue, she merely had to open the door and show him a bit of attention and flirtation. Most of their messaging back and forth was done in snap chat, so I can't see he nature of it at all. There was enough in Facebook messages to see what was happening. It was very graphic and sickens me to this day to think about. They had discussions about meeting, but it never panned out (evidently our family vacation fell inconveniently on top of her planned trip up here). He claims that he never intended to meet her, but merely kept up the "lip service" so she would continue to hang around and pay attention to him (and help get him off). He says he cared about her but also that, to a degree, he thoug of her as "interactive porn". Like that should make me feel better.

When I found out, he scrambled to cover details. He tried to get into Facebook and delete the evidence but I changed his password before he could. I read everything that was there. It was damning. He managed to cover up his Skype account, but didn't think to delete browser history, so I found that about a month later. Because I can't see any snap chat history, I don't know how often or far they went. I know he showed and did everything, but he says she never showed/did more than waist up. I feel this uncontrollable urge to know everything. His actions are SO FAR departed from the person I thought he was and it is literally driving me insane trying to reconcile the person he is with who I thought he was. I want to understand all that he is capable of. Phone sex? Did they talk about me? My daughter? What intimate details does this person now share with my husband that I have no knowledge of? I thought I knew him so well. I honestly had no idea that anything was wrong in the marriage. I'd have told anyone who would listen how wonderful and devoted a husband and father he was. Catching him in this has been more painful to me than my father dying last year, honestly.

His story changed for the first month after d day. First they only talked. Then they dirty talked. Then he showed things only from waist up. Then he showed it all but never any videos, then videos of everything. She only showed cleavage. Then bare chested, then a video. More and more kept coming out and it's like "d day" dragged on forever. When I discovered the Skype account I told him that he had one last chance to come clean and I made it clear that I knew he was hiding more, but didn't tell him what I knew. I think that finally got everything to come out, but I am just feeling so incredibly hurt and burned by the entire ordeal and repeated lying. I worry there is more he hasn't divulged.

He has expressed remorse, opened his phone up to me, changed his phone number, ended things with her (rather brutally, at my request), and is complying with requests I make as they come up. He seems to genuinely want to make our marriage better and work through this. Deep in my heart, I love him and I know that's why this hurts so much. We are in therapy, individual for both of us and marriage as well. It feels so slow going and I don't know what to do with all these horrible emotions. I feel obligated to try and reconcile for my kid(s) and because I don't think I will ever trust another man again. The devil I know vs. the devil I don't know. After all, infidelity rates are pretty drastic. I also don't want to be alone, and the thought of throwing away 10 years of my life is depressing and scary.

What I am looking for here is reassurance. Please see my TLDR above for additional asks of all of you. I'm just so incredibly heart broken, and I can't stop thinking about the things he did, and feeling as though I can never trust him again.



Ps: as you can imagine, I'm incredibly mad at the OW. I reached out to her after I first learned of this via text and I just wanted to know why. You may not believe it, but I was incredibly polite and cordial, given the situation. She never responded. I just want to understand why she did this. She knew he was married and had a kid and she gunned for him anyway. He's a horrible person and fed into it, but she was intentional. I know she has a boyfriend, but I don't know who. I have snooped on her Facebook - I really think the poor guy should know. But she has 600+ friends (really?). I've entertained thoughts of messaging all of them (maybe at least parents) to tell them what she's capable of, to ask that they let him know, and to warn any of them with spouses of the kind of person she is. I know that sounds awful and petty and even though the ugly places in my mind entertain the idea, I've yet to act on it. I want justice, but at what cost? So how do I let those feelings go, along with everything else? Would it be the most horrible thing to out her? I'm not talking about slitting tires or boiling bunnies, but it really feels like she just get out of this whole situation without a single scratch, while my husband and I suffered a nuclear attack.

Please help.


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## Roselyn (Sep 19, 2010)

How old are you and your husband? Do you have a job? Don't have another child until you have sorted out your marital problems.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

Expose her to her contacts or as many as you can.

Your husband needs to change jobs, she should lose hers.

Are you in counselling to help you get through this?Is this his first time? 

Has he ever cheates on you physically.

Might be worth setting up a lie detector session for him.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## badaboom (Feb 19, 2015)

From everything I've read and been told, it can take months/years to really trust a WS again. It's ok that you feel this way, it's normal. You need to decide for you (and you don't have to do it right now), whether you trust him. Now that he's out of the affair fog, it sounds like he's trying to do what he can to help you trust him. Are you in counseling? Individual and marital? It sounds like you need someone to talk to whom you can be completely open about your feelings. 

I don't think you can ever fully move past it if he doesn't work through why he did what he did. If he doesn't figure that out then what's to stop him from doing it again when things get tough (or even when they don't, but he just gets an itch).


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## NoChoice (Feb 12, 2012)

OP,
The simple truth is that in order for you to progress past this your WH will have to something(s) extraordinary. It took extraordinary to put you in this situation and nothing less than extraordinary will bring you out.

So many WS's believe that if they act as any married person should, that it will be enough to convince the BS that they are truly sorry and genuinely contrite. However that is merely the behavior they should have been demonstrating all along and is nothing more than what is expected in marriage.

What they did was go above and beyond the ordinary to have their A so how can they reason that simply returning to "ordinary" marital behavior will put everything right? If your WH is truly dedicated to saving this marriage then he will move heaven and earth to prove to you he is sincere and can be trusted again. If he does not then he will not.

Now only you can decide what is "heaven and earth" but if it is sufficient for you then it is sufficient enough. However, simply doing the things he should have been doing all along as a married man is just not enough, he must prove it demonstratively and definitively. If he does this and you see and are convinced that he is putting forth great effort, then, in time, your trust and faith will return. Perhaps not fully but enough to be mostly happy and have a good marriage. If he does not then you will never regain your trust and the marriage will most likely terminate.

Consider this, if a person wants to do something badly enough they will find a way, if not, they will find an excuse. I sincerely hope your WH wants this badly enough and I wish you good fortune.


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

Ciren84

My WW had a six month long EA/PA, my d-day was January 20, 2014. Her affair was also with a co-worker whom she had direct contact with every day. All methods of contact were through work devices. My WW affair was in the summer of 2010 to early 2011. My WW ended the affair but continued to work with her OM until April of 2014. We are in reconciliation, and I will tell you this now, you both have to be all in for this to work. Not one glimmer of doubt can be in either of you. This is the hardest work you will ever do, it is very exhausting and will push you to your limits. You will take steps forward and go back three, you will have days where you get by hour by hour. I'm not saying this to scare you but rather to prepare you for the difficulties you will face. 

We are also in IC and MC which would be my first recommendation. You are doing this now, so that is good. Your road to recovery is long, painful, and filled with pitfalls to derail you, but I believe it can be achieved. Fourteen months from d-day I would say we are on the correct path but we still have a long way to go. I hope you understand that reconciliation is a process, and like most processes you can't skip anything. There is also no fast track to the process. Some may move faster then you, some slower, but you will need to navigate the process at your own speed. I also hope you understand that having a truly remorseful spouse is as rare as being successful at reconciliation. 

Your husband no matter how remorseful will never understand what you feel. I believe there is very good reason for this. During MC I brought a small child's puzzle to session. I assembled the puzzle and told my WW this is your affair. I then removed four pieces of the puzzle, I looked at my WW and said, this is your affair to me. I asked her what went here, or here, or when did this get out over here. It is also my belief that a WS will never understand your emotions or pain fully. Until it happens to them they can get an idea but they don't know fully. 

Your husband has heavy lifting to do, you need to know if you think he can do this. Would he have ended the affair on his own? Are you sure there is nothing more? Any other revelations that come now will severely damage the reconciliation. Trickle truth has to end now, this just continues to put you back at square one. It also adds to the lies and deceptions that are so difficult to work through. Any more trickle truth and you won't be able to move forward.

I wish you the best of luck. Reconciliation is possible, rare but possible, I hope I make it and honestly feel that we can.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## sidney2718 (Nov 2, 2013)

Ciren84: You have had some good advice. But let me add one detail. As you know, it takes two to reconcile, but HE has to do the heavy lifting. You have lost trust in him and that cannot be restored without his help. 

He has to be able to answer all of your questions (and you have had and will have tons of them) fully without withholding anything. And he has to act in ways that increase your trust in him.

This is a very uncomfortable thing for most men, but if he wants to keep you he HAS to do it.

Your job is to make it easy for him to comply with this, and to make it hard for him to not comply. He needs to know exactly what you will do if you catch him in another lie. He needs to know exactly what you will do if you catch him hiding ANYTHING.

Lay it out for him. He's either all in or gone. There really aren't any other choices.


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## thatbpguy (Dec 24, 2012)

Genuine trust is lost forever. You need to learn to cope with being with a betrayer who can do so again at any time.


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## ScrambledEggs (Jan 14, 2014)

NoChoice said:


> OP,
> The simple truth is that in order for you to progress past this your WH will have to something(s) extraordinary. It took extraordinary to put you in this situation and nothing less than extraordinary will bring you out.
> 
> So many WS's believe that if they act as any married person should, that it will be enough to convince the BS that they are truly sorry and genuinely contrite. However that is merely the behavior they should have been demonstrating all along and is nothing more than what is expected in marriage.
> ...


Well stated. This is exactly the problem and answer I have struggled with. Though my situation is much worse. It all goes back to what you are willing to accept as 'enough' and what will be end of it.


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## Ciren84 (May 4, 2015)

Roselyn said:


> How old are you and your husband? Do you have a job? Don't have another child until you have sorted out your marital problems.


30 and 31 respectively. We both have decent jobs, though I make 2x what he does. As much as I agree with you about postponing having another child, terminating a pregnancy on top of everything else might just send me to a loony bin.


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## Ciren84 (May 4, 2015)

MattMatt said:


> Expose her to her contacts or as many as you can.
> 
> Your husband needs to change jobs, she should lose hers.
> 
> ...


Does it make me a bad person to out her? 

He has already left the job - he actually did before the affair ended. He does contract work and it's always temporary. 

We are in counseling. To my knowledge he has never physically cheated. He went for STD testing at my request, regardless.

We looked into lie detector testing, but the questions I had didn't comply with the ethics of the process. Media portrays polygraphs in a certain light - you really have to focus on one issue and I have many and many questions. 500$ per question seems rather steep and just wasn't an expense we could budget for.


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## Ciren84 (May 4, 2015)

For those of you who have reconciled or are moving toward it - what is your WS doing to help rebuild that trust? What is working for you? And as NoChoice put it above, what has been "enough"? Is time a large factor? Small things added up over a long time?

My husband has deleted all social media presence, changed his number, ended it definitively, done his "best" to detail the timeline.... a book we read listed several of those things as "high cost" requests but from my perspective those are givens that he, or any cheater who wants forgiveness, would do automatically. So no, right now it doesn't seem like enough. He has asked what he can do and I draw blanks. I have no idea and many days I can't see past red, or the pain.

This is a post he made several weeks ago after d day 4.0 (we've had 5 total, I think), if it gives any insight to him. Many of you gave great advice. He realized after posting this how narcisstic he has been. I haven't felt heaven or earth move, though. And most days I am still struggling through triggers and reliving the whole ordeal on a loop.

http://talkaboutmarriage.com/coping-infidelity/264937-i-screwed-up.html


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## Ciren84 (May 4, 2015)

drifting on said:


> Ciren84
> 
> My WW had a six month long EA/PA, my d-day was January 20, 2014. Her affair was also with a co-worker whom she had direct contact with every day. All methods of contact were through work devices. My WW affair was in the summer of 2010 to early 2011. My WW ended the affair but continued to work with her OM until April of 2014. We are in reconciliation, and I will tell you this now, you both have to be all in for this to work. Not one glimmer of doubt can be in either of you. This is the hardest work you will ever do, it is very exhausting and will push you to your limits. You will take steps forward and go back three, you will have days where you get by hour by hour. I'm not saying this to scare you but rather to prepare you for the difficulties you will face.
> 
> ...



Thank you for your post. What was it for you that made you decide to be "all in" as it were? Despite how badly she hurt you? How did you get there?

I honestly don't think he would have ended it. He got an ego boost and attention. He claims he was pulling back and yet he never stopped it. He claims that contact diminished considerably toward the end of February, yet they had Skype calls at the end of March. I think without having been caught, it would have carried on much longer. Perhaps the frequency would have slowed, but they would always be there for a quick "hit".

He disagrees with this, but his actions do not lead me to believe this is the case.


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## Mr Blunt (Jul 18, 2012)

> By Ciren
> How do I trust him - that he's told me everything, that he's truly remorseful, and that he will really never do this again?



You will not be able to trust him a lot this year or maybe even next year. *The only thing that brings trust back is ACTIONS for a long time.* If he will be fanatical starting right now about showing you with actions that he is building trust back up that will help. If you had 100% trust in him before his affair then you will not be able to get that back. However, you can get 90+% and that is enough to have a good marriage as long as the other things are good.


You will never be able to know for 100% that he will never do this again because you know that he did it at least once and that tells you that he has that capability. Frankly I do not think it wise to ever trust someone 100% because humans have weakness and are flawed to some degree.


I now you are desperate for hope but I feel that I must give you the truth as I experienced it. Now I can tell you that recovery is very possible and that you both can get through this and even be better in some areas. Amp posted a thread titled “D-day” and he has proven that you can get through this and celebrate a 30th anniversary some day.	http://talkaboutmarriage.com/coping-infidelity/268258-d-day.html


I know that what your husband did to you was horrible but there are some that have been treated even worse than you and have made it. I am talking about infidelity that also included a PA and it lasted for a lot longer than yours. I am not trying to light coat your ordeal because you have been hit very hard; I am trying to tell you that, as bad as some betrayal are, that you can recover. I also want to be honest and tell you that you are going to continue to suffer for a while longer. However, it can get less every month.


You will have to make up your mind that you are going to fight and change your damaging thoughts every time they come to you. You will have to use mind over emotions for quite a while. I said on Amp’s D-Day thread that you should concentrate on YOU changing and improving yourself do that you get stronger and more self-sufficient. I am not saying you are not self-sufficient I am saying that you will have to get more self-sufficient in the areas that he has so severely damaged. For starters you cannot put 100% of your emotions or even 80-90% into your husband as he has shown you that his selfishness cannot be trusted to have your delicate emotions in his hands. Of course if you stay with your husband you will have to have some of your emotions in his hands but make sure that what he has will not devastate you as badly as you are devastated right now. If you had a very high ideal about your husband’s loyalty and character you will have to adjust your expectation to a lower level.


The bottom line is that you will have to get to a condition that you are strong enough to live without him even though you may prefer to live with him. To do that I used the three-Fs; friends, family, and faith. Some of the emotions, love, and security that I had with my WS wife was transferred to friends, family, or faith. Of course I did not transfer all but enough so that she did not have such tremendous power to devastate me to the point of being despaired of life.

You will be so very tempted to look to him to change and fix this mess he created that you may go overboard being focused on him changing and improving that you forget the you changing and improving yourself in body, mind, and spirit will pay much more dividends than what your husband does. Of course your husband has a ton of things that he can do to help you but the BS sometimes looks to the WS to be strong and be the leader that does the most to get through this crises. The BS is usually the worst one because he/she has already shown that he has low character and is deep into selfishness and may even be at a very low point.


*Careen, diligently seeks to how you can build yourself up and focus mostly on you and use every available source without any guilt! No one can do as much for you as you can!*


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