SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You're right. It's all a risk - relationships, life, everything. I'm glad you have a good husband who's worth your heart.

Speaking from the experience of staying with a cheater to only divorce 13 years later...the problem is that you don't know you are staying with a re-offending (possibly even never remorseful) cheater until the next d-day falls. There are so many that have reconciled but that also are quick to state that they would never stay should further affairs occur - so the whole "people can change" philosophy would still appear to have an expiration date when it comes to reconciling in relationships.

The hardest part for me in the subsequent d-days has not been to reconcile the relationship...but rather to reconcile the years lost in what now was clearly a sunk cost. How I evaluate that now is through an entirely different lens than when I was so pro-reconciliation. Was I wrong in that stance? I don't know. But now being out of it, I can see that entanglements (finances, kids) and fears played a much larger role in my perspective then than it does now in this new reality. It was only space and distance that offered the different view. Perhaps I would have chosen differently then - not because I would/could know he was a serial cheater...but because I would have seen the fears and entanglements differently.

So to answer this question - no, I wouldn't take a cheater back. Not because I think I'm immune to cheating in future relationships; it's actually quite the opposite which is a large reason why I'm not dating now. But I do think I would have felt differently if I had not lost all those years on someone NOW that seems so clearly like a bad bet.

Then again, by the time he had done this again (and again and again, as it turns out) - I absolutely had no doubt that he was the fucked up one and not me. Maybe that would not be as clear if I had had the same experience but with two different variables (people).

In the end, the question beneath the question is always the same no matter your camp. You just cannot know until you know. And what you think you will do in certain situations doesn't always turn out to be what you actually do.

[This message edited by truthsetmefree at 9:29 PM, November 21st (Wednesday)]

After my d-day, that was all I wanted. Let's fix this, get through it and go forward.

I am divorced now because of an affair so I'm not a great source, but where I am now compared to d-day, I don't think I could've ever really gotten over it. I feel like for me, the old feelings would creep up - why is he late? Is he really golfing and so on.

I am so much better than wondering if I'm 'good enough' everyday, and I feel like that's how things would be had we stayed together.

Reading the last few posts and having been reading on here for quite some time now, I think it’s clear that not all people are the same and reasons for affairs are very different. I know of couples where they stayed together and like nana there has been no further affairs. I know of a man who was a serial cheater who stayed with his wife and age and ill health stopped him and made him reevaluate his behaviour BUT there are cheaters and there are cheaters and there is a cheater type where they do display addictive personalities or borderline personality disorders (type b people) where I think you really are battling against their nature. I hate to say it but reading the threads here the commonalities are there, drinking, drugs, spending, gambling, debt, poor boundaries, fishing prior to the affair etc etc and those cheaters are in the majority For a lot of the ‘once a cheater always a cheater’ we have spouses who demonstrated behaviours pre affair which give us huge warning bells that we’d just be setting ourselves up for fools if we were to take them back.

[This message edited by Dragonfly123 at 2:19 AM, November 22nd (Thursday)]

I guess if people can't change, then we should simply judge them by their worst decisions made in their lives:

---Alcoholics/Drug addicts will always be such

---Cheaters will always be cheaters

---Overeaters will always be overeaters

---Thieves will always be thieves....

Some of these prior offensives may have gone on for years. Some of these offenses may have been for an extremely short time in their lives(I admit---I did shoplift a pack of gum when I was 9 years old). Sure, these offenses were committed, but it doesn't define our total being. We are a product of our sums in life.

My WW was a fantastic girlfriend for about 4 years, a fantastic fiancée for about 2 years, and a fantastic wife and mother for about 8 years. THEN, after she started drinking, she was a fair wife and mother for about 5-6 years. After that, she was a HORRIFIC wife and mother for a few years. If I was an outsider, judging the current situation(because my view is obviously tainted), I would say that she is a very good wife and mother for the last few years.

What does that all mean? I don't know---you sort it out. Like I said, we are a sum of our parts. If we were monogamous, committed partners for 25+ years, and had a brief affair, does that mean that we 'changed for the worst' for a moment in our lives....or were we always this 'cheater'.....brewing beneath the surface.....because people never change?

People can absolutely change in many ways: physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, etc. There are a million books on Amazon about people that have transcended themselves to become better people. However it is tough tough tough and will only happen if the person is committed and does the hard ass work to make the change happen. That is why every published diet and exercise program on TV has a caption that reads, "Results not typical." We could label couples working on R with that same caption.

So would I take back a cheater? That is not a yes or no question. It depends on what they did and whether they fix it such that it never happens again. My wife was awesome for 25+ years then over the last few years she changed into a hot mess (drinking, unhappy, lazy, and cheating). I still love her but that is clearly not a sufficient ingredient to R. I keep hoping that the woman of the past is still in there and that we can dig her out.