WanttToBeHappy posted 11/15/2020 13:41 PM

How long did you try to R for before throwing in the towel?
WS is doing it all right. It’ll be 2 years feb 2021
Up to Oct 2019, things were bad...dday was Feb 2019
There was sneaking for some months after then that stopped and the controlling took over with cops being called several times up to October 2019. I think his therapist said...your actions not the affair will drive her away as things got better after the last incident.
Since October 2019, he’s been a good spouse. Trying to get to be a trustful spouse. But my wall is so high still. I’m not sure how long you try before you say...this just isn’t going to work. You fkd up...you’re sorry. You are being an awesome current spouse, butit just won’t make up for all the damage.
I’m trying really hard and therapist said this year would be the most difficult as I sort though the LTA he had, the trauma, the grief, the healing.
He’s being a great spouse. If I had no past with him, I could see myself with him long term, but there is a past...and it’s ugly and I’m not sure true psychological intimacy is possible..::on either side. We’ve never had it and after all this I’m not sure there is any shot. I’m trying to give my marriage the best possible shot to be that happy ever after. I don’t want to regret giving up on my marriage too fast . Even therapists say they see couples call is quits way too fast and they know they would have made it IF they would have just tried harder and a little longer.
I’m assuming if you are all here, you never could make psychological intimacy work?

crazyblindsided posted 11/15/2020 14:09 PM

I tried R over and over again. The time I thought we were in true R he had taken the A underground and I was never able to get past the False R no matter how hard I tried, Plus my Ex's lack of empathy and remorse led to me not being able to open up again. We had lacked in the intimacy department before D-Day the Ex was not able to be emotionally vulnerable. He was diagnosed with strong NPD tendencies (I think he has a full blown personality disorder) so we never would have made it.

Sometimes the damage is just too much and that is ok. It also isn't your fault if it is too little too late. In fact I think this is true for most of us who can no longer R.

skeetermooch posted 11/15/2020 14:32 PM

I tried for a year but it was a rocky year. He seemed genuine for only a few months. Ultimately, I caught him a second time around the one year mark and filed for divorce.

My ex's behavior after getting caught was so horrendous - blaming, raging, gaslighting - that combined with the actual cheating just left me feeling like he's too disordered to work with. Even if he'd given R a real honest to goodness shot and ceased cheating, I don't think I would ever feel entirely safe with him. He showed he could not only quite easily live with longterm deception, but he could also be quite emotionally and verbally abusive. Not someone I could ever be vulnerable with again. Maybe I could get past a drunken one night stand or office hookup, but lying to me for years is something else entirely.

99problems posted 11/15/2020 18:18 PM

3.5 years. It was all a bullshit sundae, with a MC cherry on top.
She never did the work. And even if she had, I can't guarantee I would have gotten to the place I would have needed to be.
But hey, I see the light at the end of the tunnel now, and it's not a train. It's freedom.

BearlyBreathing posted 11/15/2020 20:36 PM

My story pretty much is the same as SkeeterMooch. One hellous year of, it ends up, false R. In the end, I think it was always a deal breaker for me. But he made that decision easier for me.

FaithFool posted 11/15/2020 23:59 PM

I gave it six months but couldn't work around the bit about the raging sex addiction. Life's too short.

leafields posted 11/16/2020 00:14 AM

About 18 months, but he ended up crossing boundaries. Actually, I knew he wasn't capable of doing the work. It just took time for my heart to catch up with my head.

My STBXWH will never be a safe partner and I had to make the decision to do what is right for me.

DevastatedDee posted 11/16/2020 08:24 AM

I stayed for 7 or 8 months, but I don't know if I can say I truly tried R. I was too shattered to do anything for a good 4 months and then I was looking at my financial situation and wanting to keep my son in his same school and thought "I guess people do this and can any of that love come back and he does seem to be trying?" and stayed some more. When he relapsed on drugs, not cheating to my knowledge, I found myself dancing around the house after kicking him out again and understood that I had never been in R and it just wasn't something I could do or wanted to do. To be happy about something so awful because it felt like chains were lifted off of me told me what I needed to know. I would have wound up leaving him even if he had continued in recovery for all of his addictions and become the most perfect man ever because what he broke wasn't something I could even want to repair. I'd go to meetings with him sometimes and see these men who were so together and working recovery so hard and my mind would just feel tired and almost upset at the idea that he could become this great guy and I felt trapped at the very idea. I'd look at their wives and feel sadness. These women may have been truly happy and may not have had infidelity to deal with on top of everything else, but I felt so sad to think of being one of them.

You are under zero obligation to even try to R as a BS. You are under zero obligation to want to. I take marriage very seriously, but it isn't meant to be a trap or a jail cell. Having to try this damned hard to bend your mind into a pretzel to accept what you cannot accept is so unhealthy and contrary to what marriage is, in my mind. Staying was like having an itch all over my body and mind and the moment I knew I was done, the relief was all-consuming. I wept with grief and joy all at once.

Living like that has to take years off your life. It would have destroyed me to stay even if he had kept it together. We're only here once. We get to choose. I know that there are people who wind up with good marriages after infidelity, but that is not going to be for everyone. There's some idea that you stay for years and years and then there's some magic line you cross where it no longer taints the whole marriage. How many years are you willing to give for that line that may or may not exist? If you're tired, it's okay to put that burden down.

messyleslie posted 11/16/2020 10:25 AM

I tried for 3 years and a couple months. The last 4 months he was not living at home. My ex was truly remorseful but was so an alcoholic and had mental health issues. It wasn’t the affair that ended our marriage but the affair exposed how sick he was and how far he was from who I thought he was.

I knew it was over when I realized he could be perfect for the rest of our lives and although I would be happy with that I would never trust it one bit and would love forever wondering when the other shoe would drop and in fear of what he would do.

I felt and still do feel some shame over staying that long but honestly it’s because of who I am. I had to stay that long to really prove to myself that I couldn’t fix this before I ended my marriage. I’m sad I spent so much of my life in that limbo and I’m just getting out of it - divorce was final last week - but I feel like I’m leaps and bounds past where most people are the week after their divorce because I spent so much time preparing for this and I have learned so much about who I am in doing this my way.

I also gave myself permission to not decide. When they cheat they lose the privilege of having security in their marriage. You don’t have to decide right now and in 5 years, even if everything is perfect you can still wake up and be like yup no thanks!

twicefooled posted 11/16/2020 11:45 AM

When my longterm highschool boyfriend cheated on me (no kids together) I dumped his ass when I busted him cheating.

When my (now ex) husband cheated on me, I gave him another chance. I don't even know if we could have made it long term after his cheating (since I always knew it was a deal breaker for me) I still gave him another shot because we had 2 kids together. He made my decision for me by cheating on me a second time.

Westway posted 11/16/2020 13:06 PM

I never tried for R, but I admire all of you who did take the risk.

JanaGreen posted 11/16/2020 13:24 PM

First D-Day in 2010, tried to R, another D-Day in 2012, I filed for divorce, he put me through hell summer, we stopped the D in the fall after he insisted he was done lying and chasing everything with tits, I watched warily as he was a perfect husband for a year, then felt safe to have another baby. He started pulling away while I was pregnant, another D-Day while I was on maternity leave in 2015, I stumbled on his deleting of facebook messages in summer 2016, he said he "wasn't sure what he wanted" in fall 2016, moved out in Feb 2017, tried to make some noises about trying to reconcile in summer/fall 2017 but at that point I had discovered that having him out from under my roof was the only way i would not be crazy for the rest of my life. Fall 2018 the divorce was final, a little over 8 years after D-Day 1. I tried SO hard but he never, ever was real R material and he's off pulling the same shit on his fiancee now.