I did a previous post with more detail of the affair, but in short, my partner (male, 38) had an emotional affair (with female, 26) from around June to September this year. I (female, 40) discovered it by reading his diaries. Prior to this I had challenged what was going on in their ‘friendship/art collaboration’ and challenged why he was so checked out of our relationship, but I was repeatedly lied to and gaslit.
He was actually planning to propose to me the week after I read his journals so I'm very glad I read them when I did. There was a whole lot of compartmentalisation going on. We just bought our first house together (the affair happened between the offer being accepted and the purchase completing, which was four days before I read the diaries). I’ve said many times now that I really regret that we’ve bought the house, I feel defrauded given the situation. But he says he doesn’t regret it, he really wanted it, and he has offered me half the equity (he put in twice my deposit) if we split because he truly meant it to be our house. He says again and again and again he wants us to stay together and he can’t bear the thought of losing me and he wants to be the partner I deserve.
Since d-day, it’s been a huge struggle. He’s tried and tried but keeps slipping up. The first battle was that he would get defensive every time we discussed it, but he did work on that and was getting better. He’s even learned to acknowledge when he’s sinking into shame and just say so and ask for a pause rather than withdrawing. He’s bucked up and been really proactive with household stuff to take some of life’s burden off me. He’s been trying to arrange nice things for us to do. But emotionally, he’s just not been getting it at any depth. He says sorry an awful lot but it feels profoundly hollow cos he does and says careless things that hurt me again and again. I’m pretty sure he’s neurodivergent and really struggling to process everything and that that’s a factor, though definitely not an excuse.
He’d sent a cut off whatsapp start of October and blocked the OW on there but last Wednesday, she emailed him. I mostly believe she did think it was just a friendship and I don’t blame her for what happened. And her message was mostly fair and just to ask about some things related to an art project they did together, and asking if he wanted her to post a book back, but there were also hints of hurt and anger in the message and one thing I thought was unnecessary for her to include. I said let’s just leave it to discuss with our couples counsellor on Tuesday and decide what to do then. But my partner couldn’t leave it and he ended up saying to me that even though he knows it will hurt me and make me feel threatened and fearful and make me feel like he’s prioritising her feelings over mine, and even though he knows my wound is the biggest in all this, receiving the message had opened up his wound and he doesn’t feel he can heal ours until he’s healed theirs by discussing a few things and having a better ending with her. And that that shouldn’t be incompatible with our healing. To which I said I firmly disagree and that I’d like him to move to his mum’s for a bit.
I was actually open to one email response, crafted together, simply answering the reasonable questions, but hadn't told him this as I was waiting to discuss at couples therapy. But the way he said all that, clearly laying out all the risks to me, very much saying I know you have the biggest pain here but can you just wait a minute while I deal with mine and hers first… I just knew I had to get him out the house. I’ve been on a continuous cycle of hope and hurt from when I first challenged him on their relationship in July and I can feel the cortisol in my body from the continued stress, it’s been wrecking my physical and mental health. (Though I am managing, and I have a wonderful therapist, and though my friends weren’t great to begin with and seemed scared to talk about it, they’re showing up for me a lot more now).
I 100% get that some of you will think I’m delusional and mad to still want to reconcile, and I know this is probably part of the bargaining stage of grief. But I genuinely believe he loves me to the best of his ability. I think he’s stuck in limerence and affair fog and a total midlife crisis and guilt and shame and completely overwhelmed and unable to make sense of everything. And I think he has long been emotionally immature, and I think you need emotional maturity to have integrity and you need integrity to have a healthy and safe relationship. But I do not think he is a bad person; he has always been kind to me before, but he has also been very passive, and I think it’s passivity and secrecy and fear and immaturity that led to all this rather than deliberate cruelty. I even think his plea to resolve his and her pain first was more from him wanting everyone to be completely okay after all this and thinking those are easier to fix, but not realising/admitting that it doesn't work like that: pain in the fallout is gonna be there for all of us.
I did read in his diary (I have been super naughty and kept peeking since d-day) that he always forgets how much trauma I have and how vulnerable I can be because I am so competent and resilient and strong. And this chimes with how a lot of people treat me; I’m the one everyone leans on and I have created this myself, though have learned to show my vulnerability more in recent years, but I find people really struggle to see it and respond to it cos my strength and resilience is very real too. Not to blame myself, but I get why he thinks I can just hold all the pain while he sorts his first. It’s still shit and wrong though. But we have had that dynamic in our relationship a long time and I’ve co-created it with my caring, giving, nurturing tendencies and my self-sufficiency. Again, not blaming myself and absolutely not responsible for the affair and for his poor treatment, but just understanding the dynamics. Incidentally, any reconciliation will definitely need a move out of the parent-child dynamics we have had for a while and for him to be more responsive to my vulnerability.
Anyway. I initially booted him out just until Tuesday but then later asked for a month alone so that I can work on healing myself because he keeps spinning me out with his chaos and inconsistency. He left Friday and I do already feel much better. We haven’t talked about the details of living apart; boundaries, levels of communication etc. I’m waiting for couples therapy on Tuesday to address that. We've been sending messages and I've tried to keep it just to practical and non-emotional things, but it's hard to resist the desire to reach for him emotionally. But I also know that was keeping me on the hope/hurt seesaw cos sometimes he gives me what I need and other times he absolutely does not. So I need to start giving myself what I need and getting it elsewhere to recover myself.
85% of me thinks this separation will be a precursor to the end of our relationship. It’s the integrity thing. I can’t trust I won’t get hurt until his actions and words match up and they just haven’t been at all. He has an awful lot of work to do on himself.
But we had a beautiful relationship before. Not perfect, but lots of things about us really did work. And we’re both a bit quirky and unconventional; neither of us have many of the standard life aspirations, we both mostly enjoy nature and arts and living a more simple and fun life, rather than striving for luxury. We like the same niche stuff, have chilled and easy going temperaments, enjoy play and silliness, had a good sex life and were mutually mega affectionate which always gave me huge happiness. I think the affection compensated for emotional stuntedness cos I always felt loved by his body.
And there’s 15% of me that still hopes. That hopes through therapy he can turn himself around and sort himself out. Build up his self-esteem, work through the shame, get more clarity on his values, develop his capacity for empathy, learn to be more in touch with his own emotions and more curious about mine, figure out what to do with his life. Become a better partner. And he says he really wants that too, that it’s time he grows up and he can’t keep carrying on in life the way he is. He's only just, in the fallout of this, admitted to himself that he's probably neurodivergent and has started getting support for that so that should help.
Is there any hope? I don’t want people to bash him, even though there's good reason to. But I ideally want to hear from people whose WS managed to turn things around and grow up and be better people. How long does it take?? And will some time of separation help or hinder? And what boundaries during that time apart would be optimal?? I feel like we need no contact (aside from practical necessities) and to both focus on ourselves before we come back together, but man that feels hard. I want it though. But I also know I’ll be carrying a fantasy that we’ll reunite and he’ll have done enough work and snapped out of his limerence and shows signs of building up the qualities we both want him to develop.
I went to see the film Wicker today and found myself fantasising about new loves so I'm not completely down on the idea of separation. But I do love my partner and if we could work through this, it would be so good for both of us. I've been feeling angry at him most of today but when I returned from the cinema, he had popped back to the house to get more of his stuff, and he did quite a lot for me while here: like put up some outdoor lights he’d ordered, took the stinky bins out (I have a crazy sensitive sense of smell), did all the washing up, etc. He wasn’t great at being proactive with house stuff pre-affair but he has been since and he has shown lots of other signs that change is possible. It's just that it's all a bit surface level at the moment, but we are only just over two months out. Can it go deeper with more time? And how much time?
