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Should I forgive a cheater?

Answered 5 years ago

My husband was one of those perfect husbands. He was kind, caring and considerate. He really put me on a pedestal and I him. We were the perfect match to the point my best friend would say we were "grosely in love". He was the most delicious man id ever met and I melted for him. Love at first site. We were married within a few months of meeting.
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ANSWER
5 years ago
Once a cheater always a cheater. They don't have the strength of character to resist temptation.

ANSWER
5 years ago
What are you planning for the sequel?

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REPLY
5 years ago
A wife's revenge.
"Prostitute is brutally stalked and harassed by borderline personality disorder having wife of client. Wakes up in a big hole being told "it puts the lotion on or it gets the hose again".
I rang the bitch. She laughed. Her stupid cackling voice.

REPLY
5 years ago
^ definitely needs a good editor.

ANSWER
5 years ago
Ok, let’s put this in context.
He went to a brothel once 2 years ago. You don’t mention any other times. Emotionless sex with a stranger in a moment of weakness. If this is the only time he did it, you need to realise that it happened and nothing will change it.
Go to marriage counselling and individual counselling. You’ve only just found out, it will hurt for a while and you won’t get trust back for a long time. Time does heal wounds though, so just give it some more time. You don’t need to instantly forgive him or trust him again, you just need to be willing to put in the work and give it a time frame to see if there is any chance of salvaging the relationship or if it’s just time to call the quits.

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5 years ago
Your response sounds like something I would say actually.
I admit our sex life had suffered. I had lost allot of weight and I was really struggling with what was left over. Then I got a uterine infection that I assumed was just from my birth control as I had had issues before with bleeding. I actually thought my back and pelvis pain was because of my "slipping rib syndrome" which causes stomach and back pain.
I think this has all shocked me so much as it really honestly wasn't something I ever thought he would do and especially not buy the budget option.
He paid $80. I just found this shocking as that is literally how much he earns an hour. He saw so little value in my fellow woman and was willing to hurt me for an $80 hooker. Her time, energy, wear and tear and risks associated with the industry was of so little value to him. That he would cheat with the cheapest option. He then lied and said that they are all that price on the website. No they are not. I checked.

ANSWER
5 years ago
I would have said "cool story, bro" but SOMEONE beat me to it. So OP, wondrous fiction, friend. Pretty sure this was a Days of Our Lives plotline though....

ANSWER
5 years ago
Cool story Bro.

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REPLY
5 years ago
Excuse me, is your name Rahn? Cos you needa staahp! This is my line. Right, Ive changed my mind, you can keep it. You've soiled it.

ANSWER
5 years ago
This isn't a website for wannabe mills & boon authors. I'd suggest you take your tale to a publishing house.

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REPLY
5 years ago
Yes, but first learn how to cut out all the irrelevant crap.

ANSWER
5 years ago
You need counselling. So. Much. Counselling

ANSWER
5 years ago
If you had given the condensed version of that and only included relevant facts, I might have read past serial cat killer. WTF?

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REPLY
5 years ago
Serial killer in training - not serial cat killer 🙄

REPLY
5 years ago
Same, i gave up reading

REPLY
5 years ago
I agree TL/DR

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5 years ago
I’m going to help OP out because I’m in a good mood.
^house was broken into cat was injured
*husband blames himself partly and wife partly (as she left keys in the car)
*keyboard warriors inflamed the situation, causing the husband more grief (and hieghtening his PTSD)
*hisband fucks off for a few days
*the husband fucked a prostitute
*op finds out two years later
*op doesn’t want to leave the marriage but can’t figure out if she can forgive him

ANSWER
5 years ago
Then everything changed. We had a really traumatic experience. Our house was entered and our cat taken by a serial killer in training and dumped back to us alive but not ok and needed immediate euthenasia. It was the most horrific experience of our life. What still kills me is as I drove him to the vet immediately he was purring at me. He was paralysed from the neck down. He was our miracle baby as he was a feral newborn kitten we had found in our feed shed lost by his mother. He was a beautiful boy but he had brain damage and we had to be careful with him.
It destroyed us.
While I went into vengeance mode trying to get the police to properly investigate and combing through every inch of mine and everyone's life looking for clues he shut down. It was like he wasn't really even in there. Its terrible as he had slept on the couch a few nights in a row before we left to go away for one night for a wedding, as he said that he noticed that things had been moved around in our yard and said he had a bad feeling. I actually said he probably just needed more sleep but said to be wary as your intuition is important. He questioned whether he just moved things and forgot. A spare key we kept in the car that we never locked was gone. We just thought we had lost it.
Then our animals disappeared and it broke us. He was overcome with guilt because we had left our boy alone and kept saying he could see the blood on his hands from where he had picked him up.
The person poured through our stuff while we were gone before taking our cat. They did stupid things like took all the dvds out of the covers and i am guessing took them then put the empty cases back. Unscrewed parts on my husbands boat so it would fall apart in the water. Messed with the breaks on an old car. Got onto our computer and changed my job title to prostitute and wrote comments on photos I was tagged in from my own account calling me fat. Local people got funny with us. We were in the local news and on a bigger online news site and people questioned whether we had done it to our cat, asked whether this was a scam to get vet bill money even though there was no vet bill except to be put down and we really didn't need to ask anyone for help. They said I had obviously done something to someone. Wrote that maybe I'd had an affair with someone and this was punishment. They bombarded us online, found our business page and would hound our phone with phone calls. "It all doesn't add up" they'd write even though it clearly did. "Maybe one of the kids did it and they are covering it up". "Guess that's what they get for leaving the cat alone. What if the house had burnt down. Some people just shouldn't own cats". It was ridiculous. We were the victim here. Our boy was the victim. I didn't have the energy for it and I became an angry mess.
My husband switched off. It was like he wasn't even in there anymore. He wouldn't talk to me. He did but it was like he was a shell. His mum came and stayed for 3 weeks to look after him and drove him back interstate to hers for 3 weeks as I was too scared to leave him home alone while I went to our business and we weren't in the financial position to close down as we had orders to be filled. I felt really bad for doing it but his mum said he needed round the clock care.
He went up there and I barely heard from him. I just thought he needed sleep. He told me that was basically all he had done. Towards the end of his stay there was a night where we videochatted and he was acting angry towards me, his face just looked hateful and wouldn't tell me why and I quote said "i dont have time for your paranoid shit today". I felt something was off and I actually texted and called him several times that night and it rung out. I "find my phone" and it said location off.
The next morning he said he must have been too tired to hear it ring.
I knew something was up.
We got him into treatment. He went on PTSD meds returned to his work when he felt better. Everything then went back to smooth sailing albeit we both had broken hearts.
So it had now been 2 years and life has returned to normal. But he kept asking when we would renew our vows which I thought was a wonderful idea and he suddenly started being weirdly nice to me and said he wanted to move further away into a much bigger house. He called it our fresh start and said all that happened before he wanted to forget.
So here we are 6 weeks ago and I was looking through our old bank statements as I did the maths and calculated our new mortgage repayments alongside our expenses. It popped up that he had actually gone out on the night I couldn't get him on the phone and spent $180 somewhere at 1.30am. What is even open at that time? I confronted him and he said that his account must have been skimmed and said I was being silly and didn't appreciate me asking him. It just didn't seem right. I pulled up our phone bill from back then and saw he had rang a phone number just before this. I rang it. It was a brothel in Rockdale.
I acted all nice and told him I knew everything and he admitted it. Broke down in tears. He said his brother who is a swinger with his wife had been there all day and they'd gone out and it had happened. He said he was planning to leave me. He blamed me for the cat as I hadn't locked my car so the person had gotten the keys to get in. His brother hates me. He reckons that I am basically a b#tch because there had been a big fight a few years earlier when he had visited and had asked me if I "knew any sluts". I'd told him where to go. He had stormed off. Come back and my 15 year old sister had dropped by and he had been really inappropriate towards her infront of me and freaked her out and I kicked him out of the house instantly and my husband hadn't seen him for 3 years. Like ffs he is 32 years old. She's 15. Piss off pervert. I didn't stop my husband from seeing him. He himself had told him he messed up and he didn't want him anywhere near our house.
So I dont know what to do at this point in time. He got an std test and has begged me to forgive him. He's been open and honest. He's even taken a boatload of my screaming and putting my headphones in and pretending he doesn't exist for days on end.
We have already exchanged contracts on our new house. I'll loose my $90k deposit if I pull out and our own home here is about to be settled with the new owners.
It's so sad as I had big plans with him. We finally find our dream home and I find out he did this to me.
What would you do if you were me?
We live in each other's pocket. We don't fight. We have sex 5 times a week. We have a really happy life together.
But how can one move on from this? Is it even possible. I close my eyes and I see it. I look at him and I feel the same love I always have and then I feel utter heartbreak and despair.
I barely eat, my work is suffering and people are noticing it and I've dropped 26 kilos since I found out. I am so broken. I was so upset after I found out that I ran away from him and he chased me and I slipped on our front steps and broke my wrist, a finger and tore my meniscus in my knee which will probably need surgery as it's not getting better at all.
So what would you do?
I know he doesn't deserve a second chance. This detracts from the act against me. There's nothing he could do that would make this even a slight bit ok. It is what it is. A horrible act. I will only give a second chance because I need it for me.
He was and is my best friend and this really is something I honestly never thought he would do. That I guess is why it is so shocking. We had bad things happen before and it only ever made us turn to each other But this he completely turned away. Can they change? Learn their lesson? Do I even know him? He says he wasn't in his right mind but I struggle with this.
Can this even be salvaged.
The last week have seemed to go back to normal as I'm now on antidepressants for PTSD related to his betrayal and I'm feeling less like I want to die. I really did love him. Do love him. He said he resented me but that it was no excuse and has taken responsibility even going so far as putting a gps in his own car and handing me his card. He really wants this. But how do I even know he has changed?
Do I walk away? Or stay?

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REPLY
5 years ago
My god you have a vivid imagination

ANSWER
5 years ago
Get. To. The. Point.

ANSWER
5 years ago
All that crap over a bloody cat. Both of you are to blame. You over reacted big time and dragged your husband along. No wonder he cheated.

ANSWER
5 years ago
Congratulations on losing that 26kgs - you rock girl! Sounds like you really patched things up if you are having sex 5 times a week (probably how you lost all that weight 😉 Your statement that you will “only give a second chance because you need it for you” seems to have answered your own question. That often happens when you give free range to your rant, so congratulations and good luck 😊

PS: the Dr should have told you that the meniscus has no blood flow and therefore it is NOT going to “heal up”. Your knee is as good as it will ever be without surgery.

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REPLY
5 years ago
Ugh. I wondered why it didn't seem to be getting better. She said that if I lost some weight it would probably get better. That seems though to be the fix all for everything. Losing weight didn't help. It doesn't hurt as much as before but it's still a constant thing. We have private health insurance luckily.

ANSWER
5 years ago
How did you even post such a long comment?? Its character limited.

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REPLY
5 years ago
Character limit is only on questions and replies, that’s how she could post such a long comment.

ANSWER
5 years ago
Wow, such horrible answers I've read so far.
Go to counseling individually and as a couple. Give it time and then revisit that question.

ANSWER
5 years ago
I am so sorry for your traumatic time. People can and do recovery from infidelity it takes work and often they say they end up with a complete new, different and better relationship. It sounds like you both want to work at it. Use the opportunity of a new house to have a new start. Seek counseling for you as a couple and for you both individually. There are therapist in Australia that have trained in the gottman institute method of repairing relationships after the trust is broken. Do not go to relationships australia they just advocate divorce. I would say stay but be prepared to both work hard on yourselves and the relationship. The traumatic event sent you down a pathway where as you said you both reacted differently. Yes initially you may have turned away from each other but now is the time to turn towards each other. The new house makes it a great time to mark the line in the sand.

ANSWER
5 years ago
Chill out

ANSWER
5 years ago
Couples counseling, then decide.

ANSWER
5 years ago
All I can say is what the fuck....