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What can I do to help my husband get over the romantic and sexual details of my six month long affair ?

He cannot get over the fact that I told another man that I loved him nor can he get over many of the things I told my AP in the text messages my husband found. They were horrible.

[This message edited by 1970 at 2:26 AM, December 31st (Monday)]

BS here and honestly......

Talk to him about it as much as he wants to. DO NOT protect him from the details. If he ask, tell him. Warn him about what you are about to tell him and make sure he wants to know. When he says yes, you tell him everything.

Own what you did and dont minimize it. dont blame shift.

This is a long an painful road, but any other way will be longer and more painful.

If he is still with you, then understand that he wants things to work out between you two. He may be angry or sad, and likely his feelings will be one hell a rollarcoaster. but if he is there then he still has hope. If he did not then he would have left already. Just remember this... the more you hide and avoid his questions the more pain he will have.

Dday for us was about six months ago. He has asked countless questions about my affair and AP. I have asked every single question with honesty and in detail. This was the advice of my IC but he is still stuck on the romantic and sexual details. I dont know what to do.

Just keep answering over and over and over.

What he is doing is very normal. Do not rush the process.

I am almost 3 years from dday, I still struggle with what my WW did, I still have anger and hurt. My anger and pain are not as bad as they used to be. It helped the more we talked about it. I would ask over and over and I would ask the same question in new ways.

What I was looking for and likely what your husband is looking for is whether or not you can be honest with him. If my wife could be honest with me about everything, all the details, then I could start the process of trusting her again.

The more transparent you are about everything and dont hide anything from him, the faster the process will go. It will hurt him each time you answer his questions, but over time it will get better. remember, this is a 3-5 year process.

Remember he has been traumatized and his brain is trying to make sense of it.

[This message edited by Ichthus at 3:37 AM, December 31st (Monday)]

What kinds of questions did you ask over and over ? My husband asks me every sexual detail question over and over like an obsession. He also asks me over and over again how I could have fell in love with another man or thought I was in love with another man. Then he asks over and over again about my understanding of limerence. He seems to be interrogating me that I actually believe I was in a state of limerence rather than a state of true love. He is not at all convinced of this. I dont think he believes in or understands limerence because he never experienced it and it sounds like a bullshit rationalization to him. He saw all of my texts to my AP which contained significant sexual and romantic detail. How can I convince them those text messages were not true when he saw them with his own eyes ?

If we did not have children he would have already been gone.

1970

Not much to go on in your posts

First you have to accept you have added a memory to your life and to the life your husband will have endure. Yes, endure. His memory will eventually dull but he will never forget. If you are not yest resolved to endure with him, then -

Read the healing library and get Ms. McDonald's book and read it till it becomes your way of life.

Along the way - find out why you lack the integrity to resist temptation. (usually said here "get to IC")

Be careful of saying anything other then perfect truth. Any inconsistency in your conversations will destroy your credibility and put you back to square one.

Buckle up for a very long ride.

Read the JFO stories to see the pain others have felt.

Figure out what empathy is and whether or not you have it and are showing it to your husband.

Hey 1970 and welcome.

I am a little concerned with your choice of words, "get over" comes off very insensitive to the trauma and pain that you have inflicted upon your BH. I think it would be beneficial to educate yourself about the effects of trauma specifically infidelity related trauma. You are six months out and where he is in his healing is normal. The questions are actually helpful to his healing. I hope you are willing to allow room for it. And not wish for him to be over it by now. They say his healing can take anywhere from 2-5 years.

I know the questions aren't fun, but I promise you he's not enjoying it either. He's not doing it to punish you, or drag it out. He's doing it because his traumatized mind is relentless about it and he's trying to make sense of it. I don't know if you have ever met someone traumatized or read stories. But people who have been through horrible things like losing their home to a fire or hurricane, or even assaulted often tell and retell their story over and over. This is no different. Well slightly, because he didn't know this was his story. And all he has to go off now is what he saw in text and what comes out of your mouth. That's tough. He has take your word for it, except it doesn't add up with what he saw.

I mean you get why this is hard for him to believe right? Other than "he just doesn't understand limerence" to see it all in black and white then you trying to tell him it's not what he thinks. When we prove to be untrustworthy our words are meaningless.

Those words are now burned into his mind. He will never forget. Maybe instead of trying to convince him of anything you could try to show sympathy and compassion for what he's going through. Step into his pain and show understanding of it. What is the conversation like when it turns to this. What do you say?

Have you read around in the healing library here? I suggest that you start there, and pick up a copy of "how to help your spouse heal from your affair" by Linda Macdonald. There is also a post titled "everything a WS needs to know" something like that read it too. Again educate yourself. Find understanding of what he's actually going through and what you can do to help him heal, not help him get over it. If you think he should be further along just six months out, you're in for a rude awakening. Do you think you would be over it by now? The betrayal is tragic and the words he read is death by a thousand cuts. How is it you think he can just forget you told another man you love him? Or get over the sexting? Maybe you should go through and reread it all and put yourself in his shoes.

Something that we must do as a WS is do our best to get it. Strive for that. Remember your actions are all that you have and they are very telling.

First I want to say I was lucky not to have seen my WH’s and OW’s texts. I’ve only seen one, the one I intercepted on dday “I love you too”. That is literally burnt on my retina and in my brain. I kid you not, only now just seeing it written down makes me feel sick.

I have a pretty good image to what those texts contained. I can imagine all of it and I have a pretty good imagination. I don’t actually think I needed to see it as well.

Now back to your situation: he saw all of them. Or a big amount of them. The questions over and over again will last a while. It is for reassurance that: 1. You’re telling him the truth and you don’t minimise it and 2. That you understand the state you were in at that point was fantasy land and realistically you had no clue what you were talking about.

Let me address the second point, when I was in asking the same question over and over again I was expecting an answer structured somehow like this: yes I have done x y and z. I am horrified at what I have done. I can’t believe I’ve done x (run through the details) and risked everything. I had to convince myself that I loved this ow to make it more justifiable in my head to have an affair and risk losing all I’ve got. Looking back I have no clue how I thought I was in love with a woman willing to sleep with a married man, a woman who I didn’t actually know in real life, we spent little time together so I had no clue who she really was in real life (insert description of who she really is as boy, did she show her true colours when she realised my WH wasn’t going to leave me for her). I thought I was in love with her but really, I was in love with the way she made me feel like a God. Although now I realise she was playing the affair game, she had to make me feel like a god as she knew she had to compete with my wife. I am so sorry for what I have done to you and us. Now I appreciate us because...

So I’m not giving you a script but I’m telling you what I needed from my WH sometimes on hourly basis in the initial aftermath. And no, you shouldn’t recite what I wrote above. But your answers should include: honesty of the facts, recognition of why you’ve done it (your own whys - bare in mind nothing your BS did made you have an affair so don’t include “I felt neglected by you” as my response would me “and how many times did you discuss this with me? I felt neglected too as I was in the same marriage but I didn’t go and had an affair”), your current reality and why you know it was wrong on so many levels, appreciation for the attempt at reconciliation and a sincere apology.

My WH was initially telling me that he feels like he keeps repeating himself on and on and he ran out of ways to show me appreciation and apologise for what he’s done. What you (and all WSes) need to understand is the trauma of betrayal. The words don’t mean anything anymore. The information doesn’t sink, my WH would reassure me talk to me as above, I’d be able to believe him for like... 20 min and then I’d have an anxiety attack. That timeline has increased with time and now I can have a whole day without any reassurance with regards to his remorse and where he’s at now. I’m 15 months out.

As to the questions over and over again? We want to hear if the details change. Every time we hear the same details it sinks in a bit more and we reach acceptance. It is a relentless process and the details are processed one by one. Without trying to be mean, to be brutally honest if you don’t love this man with all your heart and don’t feel like you’re able to put the effort required, set him free. It is just relentless. I’d reach acceptance on a sexual detail and I’d think “oh good, it doesn’t pain me anymore” and my brain would dig something else, literally one thing was done another popped up. And for God’s sake, don’t ever lie or change your story to make yourself look better... my WH recently just changed one insignificant detail (in the grand scheme of things) and it threw me back into spiralling. Adding the question: what else has he been dishonest about? Just be 100% honest. As bad as you look.

To add: the questioning over and over in my case stopped probably around the 9 months/1 year mark. They didn’t suddenly stopped, it just slowly died down. I had all the details. We don’t talk about it anymore with regards to the actual when/where/how. Unless some random thought pops into my mind and I want to ask something again. None of this is done on a conscious level. We BS don’t sit down with you and think “oh great, time alone, I can’t wait to ask those gruesome questions in which my WS stabbed me and betrayed me, over and over again!” It is a burning need to ask and hear the answer again. And again. Until one day our brain goes “I’m done with that detail”.

Saying the above: at 15 months out we still discuss the affair in some sort of context every day. Be it a “I cannot believe you decided to risk everything for what?” type of conversation, be it a “why would you stay in the marriage with me now when it wasn’t cherished before?” or be it my WH holding me and telling me how grateful he is for the chance to still be in bed next to me, apologising for his idiocy, telling me how disgusted he is with what he’s done.

All in all, don’t expect the consequences of your fuck up to disappear any time soon.

1970, I just wanted to jump in and say that you are at least doing one thing right.

You are posting on here looking for wisdom and it takes some real guts to post on a forum like this.

As others have stated, there's no getting over this.

It takes a good 2 to 5 years for a betrayed spouse to heal from this stuff. At least that's what I've heard. I'm only about 2.5 out myself.

The questions will stop with time. Although, I will say that occasionally I'll have a random one pop in my head, now and then.

I too found out about my wife's affair by reading her text messages/ emails.

While you can blame it on limerence or whatever, the fact of the matter is, what he or I read, is some of the most painful things I've ever seen.

I can be having a perfectly good day and out of the blue, a message will pop in my head.

You will never be able to understand this kind of pain or obsession with finding out.

This kind of stuff can literally bring a giant of a man or woman to their knees. It's soul crushing.

Can you give us more details of your A or how you handled it when he found out?

It might help if you ask yourself if, how or when you could get over digesting romantic and sexual details of a six month long affair your husband had with another woman. Perspective from his position might help you with yours. Once perspective is gained, you'll be able to change or at least better manage your expectations.

As the poster said previously, he's traumatized. The text messages brought a degree of undeniable truth to him. He didn't just hear it, he saw the words with his own eyes. For the betrayed, the distinction between limerance and love is not discernible.

Not sure it's reasonable for him to logically reconcile the fact that his WIFE and best friend verbally expressed love for another man for half a year and then physically expressed it through love making. Doesn't get any less real if defined as limerence. For your husband it's a reality he'll have to live with the rest of his life.

Trauma carries life changing symptoms. Even after you place yourself in his shoes, the difference is his pain reality includes trauma,(emotional injury) which carries long lasting and often permanent emotional impairment.

You're talking to a person who looks the same, but is not the same and will never be the same in many respects. Infidelity has costs that are incomprehensible. This is the new reality for both of you. His reality however is exponentially more painful. If capable and willing, he'll have to learn to live with it should he remain with you. You have a very rough road ahead.

I realize these posts are difficult to read and can seem unpromising. The fact is however there SI success stories littered through this site with couples that have overcome obstacles similar to yours. It will require you to have commitment, courage, fight, resiliency, patience, integrity and unmistakable love for your husband, who may not love you back by the way. That will have to be earned back.

Lastly, while reconciliation is possible, you do have to unselfishly just help him regain his footing in life and recover from the greatest pain that has ever hit him. All, while realizing the reconciliation is not promised. Let go of the outcome and focus unselfishly on his well being. That means, not trying to convince him that your actions weren't real.

That's for your conscience, not his. He needs nonstop love and the peace and reassurance that comes with being safe in a relationship with you. Just safe. Not until then can he with a clear mind determine if you're worthy of staying with.

[This message edited by Jorge at 12:03 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

BS here. The main tools for you now are patience and perseverance. You ought to expect his questions to continue apace for at least a year, possibly two or even three years. You should plan to answer them patiently and thoroughly as you have.

Gently, there is no meaningful distinction between limerence and love, to the extent there is one, in the heart of a BS. You told another man you loved him. Presumably, that was your subjective truth at that time. That is all that matters. Trying to convince your BH that you did not mean what you literally stated is a form of minimizing, which is the most common fallback of a wayward spouse.

Which leads me to my main point. There are two parallel things that must occur for R to succeed:

1. The WS must figure out her "why's" -- figure out what was broken in you and fix it. The goal is to make your BS feel safe. That you won't have another A. To that end, you need to own the truth of your betrayal. Saying to your AP "I love you" in writing, and then trying to convince your WH that you were lying to that AP, that is not the recipe to making your BH feel safe. "I was lying to you then. I was lying to my AP then. I might be lying to you now." Your BH is going to legitimately wonder if it is possible for you to tell the truth, ever.

He saw all of my texts to my AP which contained significant sexual and romantic detail. How can I convince them those text messages were not true when he saw them with his own eyes?

Why would you try to convince your BH of this? Were you lying to your AP? I doubt it. That was your subjective truth at the time you said it. You will be better served by owning your truth rather than trying to minimize it. I can assure you that there is nothing more frustrating to a BH than a WW who stubbornly insists on minimizing.

Here is another way of looking at it. Your BH is eating a shit sandwich that you prepared and fed him. He's gagging on the taste and wondering whether he can even bear being in the same room with you after realizing that you did something so awful to him. Do you think it helps him if you now try to say that you didn't really mean it when you did this?

2. The ephemeral matter of the heart. Your BH has to believe, in his heart, that your love and desire for him are true and sincere. There is no formula for this, but it is demonstrated through your acts, not your words.

One of the worst things you can do is ask if/when he is going to "get over" something relating to your A. You should assume he will never "get over" it. You should expect that, 30 years from now, if you are still married, if a heated argument comes up, he will throw the A in your face. I can almost assure you that the pain and anger of the A will never fully go away. You must accept that your actions have permanently altered your marriage. If you successfully R, your new marriage will be different than the old one, and the A will be a permanent "plus one" in the new marriage. Period.

Again, this is yours to own. One of the arrows in your quiver of apologies that you owe your BH is the reality that you destroyed the blind trust of the old marriage. In its stead, the best you can offer him, on your best day, is a marriage that will be permanently stained and tainted with the sting of infidelity. It's like that ugly water ring on the beloved antique sideboard, where your jerk of a drunken uncle spilled a drink and didn't clean it up, leaving it there all night to soak into the wood. For the rest of your life, you will look at that stain, and no matter how much you polish and buff it, the stain will always be visible.

I will close with a couple of suggestions. First, if you haven't already, read "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald. Also, to the Healing Library (yellow box, top left of this page) and read "Joseph's Letter".

Many couples here on SI have found that a useful and fruitful path to R involves the WS preparing a written, detailed timeline of the A. This should include all of the "dirty details" and it should start from the moment you first met the AP. It should include your subjective emotional memories, such as when the AP first caught your eye as a possible sex partner, what you were thinking and feeling the first time you decided to have sex with the AP, what you thought and felt the first time you saw your BH after that sex, etc. This should be a working document that you build and add to along with your BH. It should also include family details, such as milestone events with kids as they relate to details of the A (i.e. -- were you texting or sexting with the AP while the family was having dinner, or away on vacation?).

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 9:46 AM, December 31st (Monday)]

How can I convince them those text messages were not true when he saw them with his own eyes ?

Where they lies when you send/said them? I mean, at the time, did you believe them as truth ?

I'd start there. He feels you are still lying. He feels your are saying that know because you view him as your "back up plan."

Gently, I think he sees you lying to yourself and correctly believes that you are lying to him.

FWIW you staying M does mean it erases the past. It will never be forgotten. You learn to deal with it.

Are you in IC ? Is he ?

ETA: "Getting over it." doesn't happen. He can get through it. Please never say those direct words to him. It is damaging to your M in ways that you don't understand. It will likely cause him to detach, act out or run to a lawyers office faster than answering his questions will.

[This message edited by numb&dumb at 10:03 AM, December 31st (Monday)]

Stop looking at it as being romantic. WTF is romantic about hurting someone else? Change your perspective and he will change his.

BS here. There is no getting over. What you are hoping for is acceptance. Can he acceptance that this will be a part of his marital history until death. Can he acceptance that he will never see you the same...ever. Can he acceptance he will never trust you the same...ever. once he can accept this and believe you are totally truthful, then he can move forward. But the sexual and emotional details will haunt him forever. It my will be 13 years past Dday in April. I still am affected by it. I do have a question. Why do you still see it as romantic? That would make me believe that you are not remorseful and you see the affair positively. I would feel rejected ever more than I I already feel. Do you still have feelings for the AP? Did you compare the AP and BS?

[This message edited by WilliamM at 11:41 AM, December 31st (Monday)]

Your BS does not need help "getting over" anything. If this is your goal, he will know you are manipulating him, and it will only confirm all his worst fears about you.

What he needs is a partner who wants to help him understand what has happened to him. To help him put back the pieces of his shattered reality. To help him reconstruct a true image of his wife from the pile of truths and lies before him, which look indistinguishable to him right now.

The "romantic and sexual details" are something he needs in this process of reconstruction. He's trying to get an accurate picture of who you really are, and what you have really done. He's trying to understand why. He's trying to see you not as he imagined you, but as you are, in the clear, true light of day.

Show him.

Be generous with the truth. Pour it down on him with no hope to be forgiven, or for him to "get over it." Tear yourself open and be more vulnerable than you can stand.

This is how you help.

I must not have been clear enough on the exact problems my husband is having.

He cannot get over the exact words I sent to my AP in the sext messages. The sexts were very explicit explanations of my desires for my AP and the role playing fantasies we would discuss via text. There were thousands and thousands of text messages over a period of six months that discussed our shared sexual fantasies and role playing scenarios.

The sexts also discussed our sex life in great detail. The things I said to my AP about having sex with him are killing my husband and rightly so.

My husband cannot understand that I believed the sexts contained some truth and some fantasy AT THE TIME I WROTE THEM.

Yes, I enjoyed sex with my AP at the time and I told my AP that in the sext messages. Yes, I enjoyed sexting my AP at the time but I also embellished EVERYTHING in those sext messages.

The sext messages and normal text messages are an embellished version of my affair with my AP. They make everything much worse for my husband.

I embellished frequently in those sexts to compliment my AP and make him feel good so he stayed interested. This in itself hurts my husband. That I would like and scheme to keep another man interested in me hurts my husband in addition to all the content of the sext messages.

So my affair contains at least two major levels of lies. Level one is the actual affair including sexual and emotional realities. Level two is the embellished affair as described in the text/sext messages read by my husband. My husband does not understand or believe this distinction. He does not believe much of what I say about anything.

I dont know how to help him unravel all the lies.

I dont know how to help him accept some of the things he read in those sexts. The details in those sexts were as damaging as they could possibly be. There is nothing worse that I could have said that was not said in those sexts.

Many of the most damaging details werent even true. They were embellishments.

He is devastated.

I am pretty sure the only reason he hasnt left is the children. I seriously doubt he will ever accept this. I doubt there are many people who could ever accept their spouse having an EA/PA associated with reading thousands of texts/sexts describing an embellished version of the emotions and sex during the affair.

It would help if you could give us some background.

I think people understood what you said. Your situation isnt unique. All WS lie their ass off during the affair, and it's quite common for the affair partners to feed each other ego kibble that amounts to bullshit.

Schedule a polygraph. Your husband can meet with the administrator and formulate questions to be asked during the test. It may take more than one test.

Show your husband this site, the BS's here will help him.

It's pretty much totally irrelevant whether your distinction is real. Your emphasis on this imagined distinction is merely a desire to minimize. You are not owning the reality of your decisions. Among them, you decided that it was a worthwhile activity to send these sexts to another man while married. There are couples here on SI who D over sexting relationships where no PA occurred at all.

FGiven the fact that you lied to your BH and snuck around behind his back to create the opportunities for actual and/or virtual sex with your AP, are you even a little bit surprised that he now does not trust you to tell the truth?

Furthermore, to a man, your distinction rings false. I don’t know much about women, but one thing I’ve learned is that women are quite conscious about the sexual messaging they communicate to men, because women are generally beleaguered by sexual advances from men and become accustomed to being the sexual gatekeeper with respect to men. Therefore, any expressly sexual communication from a woman to a man is intended by the woman to be taken literally by the man, and a man knows and understands that. “I loved feeling you pulling my hair and smacking my butt when you took me from behind last night. Next time we’re together, I want you to fuck me in the ass when you’re doing that. I want to feel you deep in my ass.” You may try to play that off to your BH as “fantasy” or such, but your BH knows that the man who received that message is going to take it literally.

The fact that you are here still harping on this false distinction is so utterly wayward, I wonder if you can even understand where wayward behavior stops and real healing begins.

Let me give you a preview. Healing does NOT begin with your BH understanding this false dialectic you are attempting to define between sext and physical actions. Healing begins with YOU understanding the depth of your WH's trauma, and its roots, and helping him get through them.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 5:27 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

What did you do? Tell your AP he was better than your husband in bed? That he was better endowed or sexier? Did you text him about sex acts you performed with him that you hadn't/wouldn't perform with your husband?

You're quite right that he has no reason to believe you were embellishing anything, or that you weren't in love with with your AP, or that you didn't prefer him to your husband. After all, you were willing to throw aside your vows and risk everything for a chance to be with your AP. That's about as clear a way as any to send the message that you think he's better than your husband.