SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Couple of things jump out as red flags.

1. You were in counseling whole she was actively cheating. Any counselor worth a dman would have fired her once the realization that she was lying to her. You cant effectively counsela person who is not truthful.

2. You mentioned going through a phase of grief like one and done and let's move through this. Healing is not linear and it takes years even for the healthiest of us. You will find you will experience all the stages of grief many times sometime all in the same day or hour. Just want to warn you it isn't easy and you cannot rush it. There is no going around over or under it. You have to go through it.

Eleven years in September and I still haven't forgiven my wife. I may NEVER forgive her.

The truth is that she is remorseful. She's probably a great candidate to have earned forgiveness, so what does that say about me?

It says that I'm not ready to forgive. I might never be ready, and that's okay. FORGIVENESS ISN'T GUARANTEED, NOR IS IT NECESSARY CRITERIA. IT CAN'T BE FORCED. Forgiveness is for yourself, and if/when it comes, it comes.

Does it matter to your WW that you forgive her?

I don't think anyone should tell you that you have to forgive.

My husband's affair happened 6 years ago. I've never forgiven him. I never will. He's never made me feel like he's truly sorry. TRULY SORRY. Forgiveness is something rather special, and I'm not giving it to someone who stabbed me multiple times in my back, then twisted the knife. My pain was real. It was devastating. And to know he just stood by and watched me unfold, while begging him for the truth....unforgiveable.

We're still together. We've continued MC, monthly now. The sting isn't as horrible as it once was. But forgiveness? No way. That belongs to someone who actually deserves it. And he does not.

At 7 weeks out, you probably don't even know what all you are being asked to forgive.

You don't know the truth of her actions, or the injury you have suffered.

When you know those two things, then you can decide.

Sending strength!

FWIW it took me 6 years to truly forgive him and let go of my residual anger.

I know for a fact I am still understanding all of the hurt that I have endured. Random things trigger me and take me to events involving the AP, and in turn I still am in disbelief and angry. 100% honestly, since getting sober[ish] in 2018 (later entirely sober in 2019)- after 9 years of drinking, I had always expected a retaliatory affair.

Guilt - Being an absent partner for 9 years due to addiction. I dont feel like I failed in this area, I know that I failed. I was able to provide a home and a future monetarily, but was not present in any other aspect.

Shock - Even though I knew something was going on for the last 7 months, how did I not know that things had progressed to a sexual nature. I had thought there it was just a mutual attraction. I feel stupid for not digging into this further.

Depression - I think this is still ongoing. I am not on medication or anything like that, I just generally feel low when thinking about the topic. I am too angry to be depressed.

Bargaining - I know that the other man has an 'infectious' energy. He has weaponized this to get with his partners. I have accepted that I will more than likely never have this type of energy and have acknowledged that I am me, and what I bring to the table over the last year has been the real sustainable me.

Denial - When I see/talk to her these days, I still cannot believe that the woman standing before me had another man, it just feels unreal. We still go on dates to try to rebuild, and we (at least I do) have an overwhelming sense of fun together.

Acceptance - She cannot undo what she did. She is an imperfect human who made "a catastrophic series of mistakes". I accept that the past cannot be changed.

Anger - This is where I have been for the last week. Thinking about the events last year and all the lies that went into the affair, all of the energy that she put into their relationship while ours was dwindling, really hurts my soul.

Speaking with her the other day, its obvious she is literally hating herself for the act. She has told me that she cannot forgive herself until I can forgive her. She mentioned that it is more than likely her codependency issues which make her feel that way. I told her I cannot tell her what she needs to hear right now, and if she is experiencing codependency issues that she needs to work on them for herself.

We all feel stupid for not digging deeper, not seeing the signs, not being more suspicious, not following that strange feeling that something was off. Don't beat yourself up for that. You got fooled because you trusted. We all did.I could play the If Only game all day. I have almost a decade of If Only moments that haunt me, and letting go of them will be monumental.

You have a lot of guilt or self blame issues in play here, and they are complicated. But none of what you have been experienced or done is a license to betray. Maybe instead of forgiving yourself so you can forgive her so she can forgive herself, you should just focus on trying to love each other and be present for each other. Take that pressure off yourselves for now. There doesn't seem to be a tidy bow you can put on any of this and feel like it's a finished project.

I hear you on the denial - at two + years I still have moments when we are just hanging out together, having fun, where I just go numb from the realization of who is is and what he did to us, to me. I have been shocked at how often I go back to the realization phase. My brain has not managed to reconcile the multitudes that make up my husband, and I'm still looking to see if the part of him that could do this is hiding in there somewhere, like an evil twin or alter personality. If the part of him that is sneaky, lying and hides his true feelings ever shows up again, I will be ready this time. I hope for the day I don't feel the need to be vigilant to believe his love for me and desire to be with me is real again and strong enough to endure this fine mess he made of us.

The anger, right there with you. If only he had put the effort into us that he put into them. I look calm on the outside but scratch the surface and I still have deep rage and hurt. I am planning on those diminishing with time. Time. I wish I knew we had enough time. We are not young. I don't want to go to my grave bitter, so I know I have work to do to make what's left of my life look the way I intend.

I like your words on acceptance and am trying to accept that the past cannot be changed, no matter how much I wish it. There is a line from Spartacus I wrote down that speaks to me.

"The past is seldom as we would have it. The future unknown. Embrace the present and strike all else from concern." Working on that striking part.

I feel your struggle as you are trying your best to apply logic and problem solving to this mess you find yourself in. Unfortunately, relationships and the heart aren't simple equations, they are some confusing math I don't know how to do yet. My logical brain is really struggling and I see yours is too. I cope by looking down at where I am and not ahead so I don't get overwhelmed. Best of luck to you.

1. You were in counseling whole she was actively cheating. Any counselor worth a dman would have fired her once the realization that she was lying to her. You cant effectively counsela person who is not truthful.

You are saying that I should fire my marriage counselor because my cheating wife was lying to her? If anything, I would feel that I would want to keep the counselor as she is aware of the entire backstory and fully aware of what my wife is capable of in her deceit.

The lying to the counselor about the AP came into play when she was asked if AP had liked her (I had pointed out many red flags which were sources of contention between us). My wife has admitted to me now that she was scared to bring it up as she knew that I would walk (and at that time she was absolutely right).

This obviously doesnt excuse what she did, but firing the marriage counselor over it seems extreme. If anything, I should kick my wifes ass to the curb if she is going to waste all of our time, but it is obvious now she is ready to be honest with the admission.

I'm profoundly atheist but have found great comfort from the Catholic Church teachings on forgiveness:

If someone isn't truly repentant, you don't have to forgive them. If they can't truly understand how they have hurt you, it's an option, not a requirement.

We aren't responsible for making anyone else feel comfortable by feeling other than what we feel. We don't have to pretend it doesn't hurt, that we aren't angry. That isn't forgiveness, it's lying. Forgiveness is not denying the reality of our pain.

For our own sake, however, we do need to move out of anger and towards acceptance...make peace with what happened inside ourselves.

I'm only six months out...I'm working on acceptance. I don't know if I'll have have the grace to forgive.

If someone isn't truly repentant, you don't have to forgive them. If they can't truly understand how they have hurt you, it's an option, not a requirement.

I posted in the other "forgiveness" thread that I don't really give a shit about it and I'm comfortable sticking to indifference, but I think this is an important component. Forgiving someone in a vacuum, without their attempt to patch things up with you, is, to me, a kind of self-serving, self-appointed sainthood that helps you sleep at night. I guaranty this isn't everyone's opinion on the matter, but this is how I personally feel about it. I don't need to feel like I'm Francis of Assisi because I'm so forgiving. I'm a flawed human being in the world and if someone does me dirty as badly as my ex, then as long as I'm indifferent to her past actions and have moved on with my life to forge a more meaningful and fulfilling path than the one I was on with her, I'm totally cool with that. Mission accomplished.

Now, if she ever came crawling back to me (which she won't) and started things off with a massive apology (which she wouldn't), that would be a much different situation. First off, she'd have to withstand my immediate rebuke, which wouldn't be pleasant. Then, she'd have to demonstrate an actual understanding of her destructive actions and callous nature--with or without some feeble attempt at whatever she considers to be "amends". If that were the case, then yeah, I'd probably think about what forgiveness means to me and if I could even consider it. I'm not a cold bastard, and I might even be moved by such a display. But as far as forgiveness goes, the only bar I set for myself is trying not to respond to her reaching out to me with a succinct "Fuck you". If I can avoid that, as someone who really only thinks about her whenever I post here and almost never outside of that, who can look at our photos together without feeling a thing besides "glad *that one* got away...", then I feel like I'd be doing pretty good.

No I'm saying your counselor should fire her. For lying to her. The first rule of counseling is the same as that of R. No lies. Of any kind ever. If your w is lying to the counselor then that is cause a false direction and could be quite damaging. Many counselors (those worth a damn) fire clients for lying. All it does is allow the liar to figure out how to manipulate better.

My W lied to her therapist (let's call her AB) all through her A. When we saw her IC on d-day, I detected, I think, some anger.

However, she had a set of requirements ready. If my W agreed to meet them, she would not fire my W. My W agreed.

AB said she knew something was off, but she was surprised to find that it was an A.

I really have a hard time wrapping my head around the whole forgiveness process. I believe I need to forgive myself. I did not see the signs, I trusted blindly, I couldn't protect my child because I did not know what was going on. These are things that I struggled with for a long time after finding out about his affair. As for him, I don't feel it's up to me to forgive him for what he did. It's up to me to take care of myself and my son. I don't look at things with hatred, that would poison me, but I don't feel that I have to make things okay for a spouse that was looking for a bye in dealing with the situation.