SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi everyone. I’m struggling badly tonight and could really use perspective from people who understand reconciliation after infidelity.
For perspective, I am the partner who betrayed. D day was Feb 20th.

Part of our reconciliation process involved reconnecting emotionally and trying to rebuild our family. At one point, my husband told me he wanted another baby with me. Looking back now, maybe that wasn’t the healthiest decision while we were still so fragile, but at the time it felt like hope. It felt like maybe we were truly choosing each other again.

We didn’t exactly "try," but we stopped preventing it with the mindset of "if it happens, it happens." It happened very quickly.

When I found out I was pregnant, he was initially genuinely happy. We talked about how to make room for a third child, future plans, logistics, names, finances.. all of it. For a little while, things honestly felt okay again. Not perfect, but hopeful.

Then a trigger happened that brought all the betrayal pain rushing back for him. Ever since then, it feels like everything completely shifted overnight. The anger, resentment, and hurt came back full force, and now he’s saying he can’t do this anymore. He’s talking about leaving me while I’m pregnant with our third child and raising two small children already. And the hardest part is that I think he means it.

I know I caused the original damage. I know my betrayal changed him and changed our marriage. I’m not trying to avoid accountability for that. But emotionally, I feel like I’m drowning trying to process how we went from planning for this baby together to me suddenly feeling abandoned and terrified.

I think part of what hurts so much is that this pregnancy became tied in my mind to reconciliation and rebuilding our family together. Now I don’t even know what’s real anymore.

I guess I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced reconciliation seeming hopeful and then collapsing after a trigger months later. Did things stabilize again? Or was that the point where everything finally broke?

Side note: Ive been going to therapy, went no contact with affair partner, working on myself while still trying to be a present mom. I feel genuine remorse and regret for all of it. I wish I could take it back. My husband doesnt see the effort sometimes and thinks I'll never change. He screams in my face, name calls, does this in front of the kids. And now is leaving me pregnant. At what point do I stop taking the punishment?

**forgot to add it was an emotional affair** I never met affair partner in person.

Hi and welcome. I would gently suggest posting over on the wayward side but since you are here.

The R timeline typically takes 3-5 years? I don't remember exactly. But, definitely YEARS. You are soooo very early in the healing process. So so early.

Sometimes this is absolutely a deal breaker, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Sometimes it's a fucking roller-coaster of many ups and downs, twists and turns. Not the fun kind of roller-coaster, but like the one where you could easily fall off the ride, choke on your vomit, and you’re just white-knuckling the safety bar, praying you survive the next drop.

Triggering is tough. There is panic, anxiety, and your brain makes you feel like the danger could reach out and swallow you whole right where you stand. Its enough to make our BSs say fuck this. The whole thing is terrifying.

There are a few fundamental things we can be doing to help them regain some safety and balance back into their life.

He needs to see that your words and actions match up flawlessly, day in and day out. Uncertainty is his enemy right now, so absolute predictability,transparency, integrity, so forth. There is a book we typically recommend, How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair. Buy it tonight. Start there.

At what point do I stop taking the punishment?

He absolutely shouldn't behave like this in front of your littles. Reactive abuse is a beast they didn't ask for but must get under control. You get to draw the non-negotiable line between allowing a betrayed partner to express their immense grief, rage, terror and enduring emotional abuse. You get to say when enough is enough.

[This message edited by foreverlabeled at 2:33 AM, Thursday, May 28th]

Is your H in counseling?

As a betrayed - I can honestly say it saved my sanity and helped us R.

Sorry I'm still navigating how to use the forums, I appreciate all the input and appreciate the replies

H and I did about 5 sessions of counseling. He decided we didnt "need it" cause we decided to work on things. Although now hes saying its over. And he's always been pretty against therapy. He doesn't think it helps and isnt worth the money. And I dont dare bring it up or encourage it cause he'll argue he doesnt need it.

So you don’t need marriage counseling (MC) because the marriage didn’t cheat. You each need IC to figure out how to move forward. As the WS, you need to fix whatever allowed you to betray your spouse. He needs IC to help him navigate the betrayal, learn how to manage his wild roller coaster of emotions (which are TOTALLY normal), and determine what he wants/needs.

All BS will have wild emotions, and a rage stage can hit at 3-6 months, so not surprising. And he has to be allowed to air his pain. HOWEVER he cannot do it in an abusive way and certainly not in front of the kids. You need to draw that line b/c right now he can’t.

You are going through the shame and regret and possibly remorse of cheating with the hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy. This is a challenge. He is going through the roller coaster of emotions of being betrayed and then realizing that whether he wants to or not, he’s connected to you in some form for at least 18 more years. It’s a lot.

You need to focus on your pregnancy and do what it takes to protect that and your other kids. And if you want your M, you need to be the steady rock that supports him while he goes through this and while you work on your "whys".

It takes YEARS to recover from this. Some of the folks here who have successfully R’d said it took 2-3 years to start to feel some semblance of normal and even more to get to "good". But it can be done if BOTH people are 100% committed for the very long haul.. You are in the very early days still. Things are still very raw.

Start by reading in the Wayward Forum - so much good advice there. You can post there as well, and can put a stop sign up if you only want hear from fellow WS.

You may have your real name in your profile. I recommend editing it out, if it is your real name, just to be safe.

I, too, think a good IC can help you. I know a good lawyer can. Please consult a couple of good family law attorneys ASAP.

You're 3 months out from d-day. At that point, I was just coming out of shock, and that was with weekly MC sessions that were all about the A all the time. Shock is pretty common; it sometimes mean the person in shock is like a wild pendulum. The decision may not be as firm as it looks.

Gently, if your BS isn't on board for R, R won't work, and the sooner you find that out, the better. If he won't avail himself of the available resources, staying with him is dooming yourself and your kids to a very difficult life in any case.

Feb was such a short time ago. It took me at least 12 months and both of us in IC/MC for me to contemplate not leaving at least once a week. But mine was a double betrayal that went from EA - 3 months and PA-3 months until they were caught.

The thing that helped me the most from my FWS was that he went all in. I had significant doubts, he did not. He did everything I asked and then some. Growing another human while doing that is next level effort.

It has taken me 5 years to heal from the betrayal of my husband and former friend. It never happens as quickly as the BS thinks it should. What triggered him so hard? And how did you handle the trigger? Because I was triggered everyday for years.

Thank you all for the replies. I'm going to see if my insurance at least covers IC. I wish he was open to therapy as well, but its not my place to "convince" him. I am not using my real name on here but I appreciate everyone's advice on how to navigate the site.

My AP was someone I met off Tik Tok. I started blowing up and getting a lot of "attention" that was feeding my ego. He was a tattooed guy. So is my husband. So even seeing what my husband would perceive as a guy I would find attractive with tattoos, is a trigger..and thats what this last trigger was. He swore I checked out a guy at the grocery store. And I understand the insecurities ive created. Although I know I didnt even look at this guy...my H cant help but believe that I'll never change and will always be seeking attention from other guys. And he has every right to feel the way he feels. I caused this.

Ever since finding out my H moved out and lives with his dad about an hour away from us. The kids and I would see him 1-2x a week. There were good moments and moments like now, where he talks about divorce. With him not being here physically, its hard to show the daily changes and work. I expect this to be a long journey, should he decide to stay. I expect it to be ebb and flow for a very long time and I will ride those waves if it means having my H back in my life again. I think I got especially hopeful/clingy when he said he wanted another baby and then I got pregnant shortly after. In my mind, I guess that solidified that we were really going to work on it, even on the bad days. So to be pregnant now and him seeming done done, I'm at a loss of what to do.

Its hard to cause I navigate the why I did what I did, I find myself not just in remorse and guilt, but so much self hatred. And any "why" (childhood traumas, some of our own marital issues and problems resolving conflict, need for attention to feel validation, etc.) will ever justify what I did.

You are not the cause of his abusiveness. He's a grown adult and is choosing to act this way. Please see an attorney. You don't want your future tied up in whatever he feels like doing from one day to the next. Find out what your options are and what a divorce might realistically look like for you. This way, when he changes his mind yet again and decides he wants you back, you will at least be informed about your options.

The pain from emotional and sexual abuse cause deep trauma and it’s natural, a step in healing either, to develop anger against you, that means acknowledging the reality of your infidelity instead of keeping persisting into living the lie that the relationship was turned into by the betrayal. After that one of two paths is viable. Leave (the healthier for the BS, the memories of the betrayal and your very existence will fade and disappear in time) or consider to give a a second chance to the wayward partner (the hardest path, he will carry your betrayal with you for the rest of his life, the scar will never fully stop hurting until he lives).

So at least is therapeutic.

However,

While name calling and blowing up in a reactive fashion is expected (not healthy is a sign of being broken, but kind of natural at this stage) and you are big enough to take it, that is a tragedy between you two, your trauma.

Not the children one.

You two are now broken, that’s upon you two to fix it. Breaking the children too won’t heal neither of you, just include them into the betrayal fallout.

They will already suffer it even while you protect them, they are way more perceptive about parents emotions than people mostly give them credit too. And yet they must be sheltered as much as possible from it, not exposed to.

That’s an iron boundary for either the WS and BS. And you both need to learn boundaries from the scratch. If this one can’t be held, then split. You have no chance of healing from infidelity if you’re not in the condition to shelter the children from infidelity.

Yes you caused it, ok, while your husband surely is devastated beyond what you can possibly realize right now, that is not a good excuse to share is trauma with the kids.

For if you brought betrayal in your family and the fallout will slowly manifest itself in time your betrayed husband exposing them is betraying your children, exposing them to the same abuse he suffered. He must understand that, and change it, or again, split. Kids are already doomed to suffer from this trauma even if you try to protect them, exposing them to its full force is just as cruel.

About infidelity fallout: kids are a collateral victim, but then there will be family, friends, colleagues, you will slowly get to realize just how vast the destruction of your infidelity is in the following years, it will taint most relationships that existed before it and they will never get back to normal again.

That is not about the blame, is about knowing ahead who to protect, damage control is a mitigating strategy, because the only person in the whole matter who won’t suffer from this destruction is your affair partner. You chose him over everybody when you cheated, and that is the consequence. He was put first then, so he got his validation from you and won’t give a crap if your life is destroyed (they never do).

Now you should put first your kids.

And the most important thing for you and your husband is healing, wether you will stay together or divorce, you need to heal yourself and he himself.

Avoiding hurting other innocents (kids) is mandatory, he can hurt a lot and you as well.

Still your kids must take the priority.

Forget mc, IC is best, you mentioned something that makes me think about what issues he might have, so if will help, no wonder he is scared of it, but he will benefit.

And he cares about the kids, you two sort your grievances away from their eyes.

Is important

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 12:53 PM, Friday, May 29th]