I had an emotional (rather than physical affair). My wife found out by accident. It came about because I felt I wasn't loved. In truth, that wasnt the reason. I had a lot of my own stuff that I never dealt with. It was an insecurity thing.

I promised that I would be open and honest, but I didnt change for a long time. We are together, but she has had enough and pulled away. I certainly think she regrets staying.

My advice - if you want to stay together then you need to work hard. But the one who was cheated on needs to be prepared to leave if things dont change. Don't get into my situation - married to an amazing person but a ruined relationship becuase of a lack of trust and respect

Yes. About 5 or 6 years.
Maybe 10 to really grow and learn how to let it go. But many factors go into it. The person who was unfaithful is a key exterminator of how successful mending it can be.
Infidelity is extremely common and many many couples go through it (more than those who don’t) but you will only hear of the non success stories because society shames us now for staying when we have the option to leave now. The old shame use to be leaving a marriage , the new shame is staying.
I can assure you if you know just 5 couples chance are one of them has worked through infidelity.
Infidelity while wrong and extremely hurtful is more commonly a symptom not an inherent character flaw.
In order for you to be able to work through it it must be symptomatic based not character based.

Is it something your struggling with or just a general question? X

My now husband
At the time boyfriend
It was a one night stand on 2 month overseas trip. With a few questionable messages to others. It was heartbreaking
I don’t know why I didn’t leave?
I was fucking crazy about him.

For me it’s worked out we had two kids
Even if we break up tomorrow or in 59 year old still count it a success. I’m a better person and have two gorgeous children because of Him

He’s had feelings for someone since but didn’t act on it even with opportunity and we are working through it again
It’s harder this time without even anything happening

The scar will always be there
You have to accept that.
Sometimes it’s right to leave sometimes it’s right to stay.
No one can answer that for you.

Only idiots stay

Tried for 7 years to get over all the prostitution and deceit and then he became so angry over it he began abusing me physically escaped 9 feb 2020 never ending and they don’t stop they get sneakier so it’s soul destroying

No I’m a man and my wife had a fling and I want to keep our marriage together but she now does not want sex with me so it’s getting harder and harder to stay together
She is constantly on the phone using every social media thing and I don’t use any of them. I just want her back but I don’t know how to get and keep her

My now husband and I came together from having an affair. We were both in the most horrendous relationships. And we were friends. We found a comfort in each other. Fast forward three years and we are married with a child and another on the way.

But on my journey I have discovered a lot. The way I felt for our ‘relationship’ wasn’t the same for him. He was sleeping with multiple women. And I was then the selected one when him and his wife finally split.

I have found messages to another woman asking for nudes. And he went and met a girl he was sleeping with before me, behind my back, but just as friends. I don’t find that behaviour acceptable. Which I obviously confronted him about. Although it is extremely minor I really struggle to move past it.

He has a porn addiction.

I have come to learn there is a huge psychology issue going on here for him. His relationship with his parents is one of mind boggling proportions. I know that all he wants is to be wanted and needed. But I do sit unsure at all times as to how ‘wanted’ he has to be.

I found out a few years ago that my husband had cheated on me as he received a message from a teenager claiming to be his child. This cheating happened years ago when we were together but before we married - we have been together 20 odd years. We have three children together and I am gutted, how can I be good enough now if I wasn’t good enough then? (When I was young, thin, happy, had a good job etc) But I don’t want to break up our family. My husband was in a real state and didn’t tell me for months and months either which didn’t help. He left his job, drank loads and got into loads of debt. Now though he’s turning himself around, stopped drinking, working hard, being lovely to everyone and now I’m the one falling apart which makes me sad. What will the kids remember? This bit when I’m sad and grumpy all the time and he’s so lovely? or the last 11 years when I’ve been holding everything together?. I think everyone would be better without me as everyone has gained something in this except me (a child, a step sibling, a grandchild). I feel I’m just burying my head in the sand and taking each day as it comes and trying to hide my sadness but not sure how long I can do that for.

My husband cheated on me 2 years ago with a bartender at a bar he would frequent with his friends. We have 3 very active kids, I work 2 jobs(and sometimes I work with him for a 3rd job), I am also very involved in our community so to say I am busy/distracted is a understatement. I noticed some missed calls and random text for this girl and she started liking anything he would post on fb. I finally saw the text that she wanted to be "the only woman in his life" and would make a better mother to his children... I confronted him and he confessed. But come to find out I wasn't told the full story, they had had sex multiple times, even spending money(we didn't have) for hotel rooms, all of his friends knew, and would even video chat with our younger kids in the car(like my son would talk to this women on video chat). He promised he broke it off, but I find out he reached out to her a few months later to wish her a happy birthday, and just chat as friends. While discovering all the info about the bartender I find other times he would be hanging with his friends and had some kind of sexual relationship with strange women while his friends covered for him. How do you recover from this? He doesn't want counseling but wants to work things out, I am still here for our children and just act like it never happened but all trust is gone. How do you stay with someone you love but no longer like?? I don't want to screw my kids up, but what am I doing to myself?

Yes. We had been married 7yrs and I was pregnant with our first child. It took about 2 years of counselling and really hard work for both us before I started to heal and move on. But that was 16yrs ago now and we are very happy and I totally trust him and forgive him!

I was blindsided. I found out after our 2nd child that he cheated on me (emails, calls and texts). He is 100% my partner in parenting and life. It was devastating. We both went to individual counseling and couples counseling, he read books on helping your partner heal after your infidelity, changed all his passwords and handed them to me, etc. He put 100% into working out his issues, improving our marriage and helping me heal. He listened to my anger and my sobs. He took responsibility for what he had done. My home life was extremely healthy otherwise, so I was not going to split up my family without doing what we needed to do to stay together. Two years later and we are stronger than ever. I let him know that any further occurrence and I would take the kids and leave. Maybe it would have been different if he had cheated in person. Who knows.

My parents cheated on their spouses with each other. They marrued young and had toxic marriages. My parents have been married now for 38 years.

It's so easy to judge someone for staying, especially if you haven't been cheated on or don't have kids to consider. My kids see nothing but love and respect between their parents. They see us dance in the kitchen, show affection, laugh every day, and enjoy beung together. I am 100% sure my kids are learning what a loving marriage looks like.

My husband cheated on me, I was hurt more that he lied about it, rather than tell me he was struggling. We sat down and discussed how we could move forwards. I suggested an open relationship. That was 6 years ago in our 8 year relationship and I have complete trust in him. Whilst people might frown upon how we went about resolving it, it's our relationship and we will do whatever makes us happy. It's clearly working for us, we've had no issues since and I can't imagine spending my life with anyone else.

I’m the one who cheated. We are a year out and still in reconciliation and counseling. I wouldn’t say I’m fully recovered yet but I am now vulnerable honest and open with my husband. Our communication has improved and we are both happier than we were beforehand.

Both of us have cheated in some way or another. It has taken some icy days and conversations, a lot of tears and long days but we have both grown from the experiences and we are now stronger than ever. We are open about everything, we voice our doubts, our feelings, we communicate better now. Not the most conventional way, but it took us cheating on each other to make us realise just how amazing we are together.

When my first child was 4 months old, i discovered my husband had cheated. My daughter was 11 days old at the time. We have worked through our issues and remained together. We had couples counselling as i emotionally was distroyed. We now have a happy marriage and 2 beautiful children. My husband has changed so much since i found he cheated. Couldnt be happy with my decision to stay and work on our marriage.

My husband of 13yrs told me last year that he no longer loved me and wanted out I felt devastated to the lest we have a beautiful home and family. We both work and I thought we loved each other. It was a huge stab in the gut for me and then we started to work it out and while he was with me he had online affairs with girls from Instagram and Snapchat. His phone full of dirty photos and sexy text messages. To make it worse while he was camping with our son at a fire da place he was on the phone talking to them.
He tells me he loves me but I can’t seem to find the reason to ever trust him again. I kind e him so much but never feel the same emotion from him. We are still together but I still have a lot of pain in dealing with it

I stayed because of fear that I didn’t want kids to be near mother in law. She has now been charged with stalking and using social media to cause harm - others in community went to police. I trusted my instinct on that one. Unfortunately I am sad and feel unloved and angry. That has an effect on the kids. As much as I try, I don’t trust my husband, for a few years a would complain about the lack of intimacy and there would always be an excuse. I never thought he was actually cheating on me- he said it was only on line and he was curious like all men! He needs to go to counselling but refuses and doesn’t see the hurt he has caused. I am working on forgiveness but it is a slow process .

Yes he cheated on me more than once. I found out and we stayed together for the sake of our son. The reason is I cannot lose weight because I have a family history of thyroid issues. After having my son the weight won’t come off. He says I’m not sexually attractive to him anymore. I’m forced to use toys as he doesn’t have sex with me any more.

I feel like we are simply room mates. Mind you he’s no sexy body himself he has fat pouring out everywhere too. But I’m blind to that because I didn’t fall in love with how he looked, I fell in love with him.

My daughter was 2. He said he felt like I had turned all my attention to her. He cheated on my with a girl from his work saying she paid him more attention and was interested in his work. I stated with him..... having left my own country to be with him. 2 more girls and 18 years later I just wasn't the same and he's now gone and with someone else. I didn't give myself to time to heal after being betrayed.

I found out my husband had an affair a week after we had our first child. I saw messages and phone calls. I was 21 and was too scared to leave. So I sucked it up and moved on. A few years later we got married... I could never shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. Fast forward 11yrs and I find messages on his iPad... when I confronted him his response was “you made me do it” and “I don’t know what your so upset over these been plenty others” sometimes a tiger doesn’t change it’s stripes.... it just gets sneakier....

I caught my partner cheating after finding a spare mobile phone in his gym bag that I had never seen before. I turned the mobile phone on and saw all the text messages between him and other women. They were flirty and full of sexual innuendo so I had no doubt he was being unfaithful. He worked nights in the weekends so I guess this is when this other phone came into play. It also made me think back to instances where I saw red flags but chose to ignore them because I had full trust in him. When I confronted him he broke down and begged me to forgive him. I eventually did forgive him but I never forgot it (and never let him forget it either) For 2 years I dragged him through the mud and treated him like a dishonest thief every time he left the house and returned. I went through his phone, laptop and mail at every opportunity and constantly accused him of cheating but he still hung on and fought me to stay. He went overseas with his parents, got a very significant cultural tattoo and practically ‘grew up’ overnight. It wasn’t until then that I was ready to truly forgive him and move forward - because something had changed in him. Fast forward 10 years and 3 kids later we are happily married and have never been stronger! We can talk about the past and admit our wrongs and fears and build each other up to reassure ourselves we are not those people anymore. We have grown together and built a very solid marriage and family. However, he knows that I have been devastated by him before so I will always have that suspicion with everything - and I won’t be naive to think it would never happen to me (again)

My husband was caught by our teenage daughters booking sex workers (messages went to computers via the cloud) he admitted seeing around 12 prostitutes from September to December 2019 and basically I have to just accept it because we can’t afford to separate. We have 4 children youngest is 9 with severe disabilities and huge mortgage. I have no credit rating and he has his own business. Where would I go and what can I do. He is also extremely controlling and very psychologically abusive

My husband cheated on me a few years back. I got to know when I was pregnant with our 2nd child, so I just brush it off and solidered on. In the past there were other indefinitely which I also worked through. We went to counselling and everything seemed fine. Even had another child. Drawing close to a our 10th anniversary I was hit with an overwhelming fear of it happening again, and this pain in my chest. I looked back at the year spent, and there's no sense of emotional safety ( if it makes any sense). He is trying his best now as we've spent a few months working out through my fears. But this feeling just won't go away. It's like I bottled up everything until everyone was in a place where they need me a bit less and there was an eruption. I dont know what to make of it. Forgiveness came easy ...forgetting isn't, its like this permanent tattoo on your heart.

Its been a tough one. On our 4th wedding anniversary He went to jail for assaulting a minor x2, which was (mostly) bull but didn’t need evidence to convict just their (changed and correlated) word against his..
However due to his lies I spent the time apart to ‘seize every moment’ so in turn i cheated on him more than he did. Its a tough one when the subject is raised in movies and tv shows- the tension in the air is quite electric.
We both know what happened and why; we also both know that no one can separate us except ourselves. Now we have 4 children and been together for 24 years.

Who knows, maybe one day it will finally tear us appart but for now we love each other enough and know its better than being separated; for our sake and of the kids.

My husband cheated with a his work colleague and left me for her. We still co parented well, and he eventually came back and I agreed to work on things.
He then left me again for the same women, and I am currently pregnant with his child, unplanned.
He has asked me for a paternity test to prove its his.
I should not have taken him back in the first instance. However im extremely happy im pregnant, with another sibling for my children.

My husband cheated on me with our neighbour/friend nearly 2 years ago and finding out through text messages on a shared family iPad was the lowest point in my life. I not only had to deal with his betrayal but also the fact that she was never really my friend and was just using me and our kids to basically take over my life. Fortunately, we have stayed together, fallen in love again and are stronger then ever. It certainly woke me up to what was missing in our relationship and as a result we have grown together. It hasn’t been easy by any stretch of the imagination, especially in the first 12 months after I found out. I lost all my self confidence, I didn’t eat and lost a lot of weight which I still haven’t regained, I didn’t sleep and was driving myself crazy been suspicious of his every move! Forward to now, I am in a lot happier place and have regained my trust in him. The hardest thing I find to cope with is that her marriage broke up as a result and she still lives in the same town as us. It’s only a small country town so I see her everywhere which is just a constant reminder I definitely don’t need!

Not the physical act of cheating but messages and photos. We are a year post it. We had open and honest communication before it happened and still do after it. I put myself in his shoes. He is running his family business for his elderly parents. Christmas time is the busiest time of the year and his mother was in hospital. It came about after he started talking to someone he had been with before and just turned into more. I was hurt and I definitely have it on my mind and sometimes it still hurts a little. But all I have to do is lean on him and talk it out and we are fine. We have been married since that happened and I know if we can get through that we can get through everything.

But you have to be willing to let yourself feel your feelings and the other person has to allow you to feel those feelings. And you have to choose to move on and learn and grow.

Good luck

It was happening after I’d given birth to our 3rd child (c-section) and we weren’t having sex or any intimacy for that matter. He was ignoring my needs and I felt like I was drowning in life. Our friends marriage was rocky and basically my husband was there for her and it got too involved. I caught them before it turned sexual but it was definitely leading up to that. I’m a SAHM and couldn’t afford to leave with 2 kids + newborn. I hated him for a couple years, our home life truly sucked but I wanted to give it a shot. Fast forward 4 years later and I find out I’m unexpectedly pregnant. (Doctors told me not to expect any more pregnancies after a surgery I had) Then I find him cyber cheating with a woman on twitter. This had been going on for a while, and I knew something was up. Behavior changes definitely told me. We are really working on being better together, not ignoring each other’s needs. It’s been almost 6 years from the first time and we’re still together. I see improvements in our communication, our openness, his “mommy issues” (his mom left him when he was a preschooler and to this day does not have contact), we have a few rough days here and there but I do believe things are better than before. Don’t get me wrong I very much wanted to leave him, I went through every scenario on how I could. In the end I decided that me being a SAHM, exclusively breastfeeding, being with our children and giving them all the love I had, was more important than dragging everyone through a divorce in those specific life events. I do look through his things, I still have days of being paranoid, I’m (we’re) not completely healed but each day is closer.

My husband left and we separated for a short time. I was heartbroken and with a 6 month old. After a few months he decided he’d like to work things out and get help. I found out he had been seeing a woman during our time of separation but was also sleeping with me. He spent the 6 months apart getting drunk and having sex with this woman. I was devastated. He had lied to me. He is very remorseful now and we are seeking individual counselling and couple counselling. He wants nothing more than me and our marriage to work. I am very unsure as to how I can get past this. It has been 5 months since I found out about the other woman and almost a year since he first left. We live separately and are trying to make it work but I can’t get past the hurt and lies. I too would like the answers.

Been 20 years now and I stayed only because the other woman ( there have been a few since) told everyone he left me for her. I stayed to prove her wrong. Been hard and I will never trust again but the kids ( we adopted more after our own and they are younger) have their dad with them and we do get along. And I can work part time to be with kids. Maybe selfish but I do not want to be alone and I think no one else would want me. We do not sleep together anymore, just share a bed. He still wanders but that’s ok now. I just don’t care anymore.

We stayed together 2 years after finding out before I decided I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I left for 9 months, emotionally I had checked out for over a year. I spend those 9 months rediscovering myself, with counselling I discovered the ability of forgiveness and understanding. We spent a few months rekindling before he moved back home. It’s been a couple of years since he came home and I can honestly say that his affair doesn’t control my every thought, emotion and reaction. True healing takes a lot from growing within yourself too and being able to truly sit back and forgive another and believe that it was 100% not going to happen again. If you have any doubt, you’ll go on a vicious cycle.

Yes, we are still together nearly 9 years on. I would say it took a good 5-6 years for me to get the anger/hurt out of my system. It took a very long time for me to see that his cheating actually had nothing to do with me, but with how he felt about himself. We are in such a better place now than we were then, in many ways. There’s no easy way through it...

My husband cheated on me 6 months after we got married. We’re no longer together but it’s screwed me up. I know so many couples who have cheated. I’m too scared to be in a relationship because it seems to just be what everyone does and I couldn’t handle having it happen again

My ex husband cheated continuously for 11years. He mixed it up with emotional and physical. I finally wised up and got the hell out of dodge last year. It's been a rough road but can say I'm a better person for getting out

I found my husband sexting a co-worker. I was completely devastated as I thought we were happy. This happened only 3 months ago. He deeply regretted it and has proven that there is zero contact any more. I know he didn't have sex with her but the pain from his actions are still hurtful. I have full access to his phone and I have screen shots of her phone number. I have contacted her and she has apologised for hurting me and putting my marriage at risk because hers was falling apart. I also have access to his phone bills and whatapp chats. I am tech savvy and he is not, so easy for me to back up files etc..
I didn't have to ask any of this, he made it all available to me to show that he will never put me through that pain. We have a small child and I do love him and I can tell he is truly sorry. I have not quite gotten over it as the betrayal and lies for those few weeks is a lot. I am working on moving past it and he has been showing me more love and affection and proving he won't ever hurt me again. He thanks me for giving him another chance and cries when he thinks about how much he hurt me.

All I can say is, only you know if your relationship is worth saving. If its a chronic behaviour pattern then its not going to change. If its once and he is remorseful and is proving himself then its worth another try. It won't be easy. But I'm certain that trust can be rebuilt. I wish you all the best.

Wasn't my husband.. long term partner. I tried to get past it.. but he got caught in the act and he didn't choose to honour our relationship the first time or show me any kind of love. So this is when I decided enough was enough. Myself and our child deserved better, a happier situation once we separated. Shame he's still a dick and isn't showing his child he respects women, instead is a bully