SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am not trying to be rude, but with all the stuff you do, where did you find time to have an affair?

The affair started when I was away for a couple weeks for work. T’s grandmothers took over childcare during that time, and I did as much as I could to get the house in order before I left (actually missed my intended flight the day I left because I was cleaning.)

Because the work site was on the west coast instead of the east, and because AP’s home timezone is still an hour ahead of mine in combination with his working hours… once home again, I found myself awake late at night as AP was getting off his shift, then I would leave the bed so we could talk and sext. There was some texting during the day, but it was very sporadic and didn’t take up much time. Sometimes he went entire days without responding at all. The only planned in-person meet up (which didn’t end up happening) was going to be when I was away for work again, during my off hours…The house was in a similar state then as it is now (and the same state it’s been for many years, as I’m perpetually trying to get everything done.)

H has been complaining like this and still being demanding of my time for years before the affair as well. I know the affair didn’t help. We’re stuck in this situation now and the only way I can see forward is for both of us to just figure it the fuck out— him, his feelings, and me, the housework. I think I just have to ignore the complaining and do what I have to do until I get there.

[This message edited by Ghostie at 4:08 PM, Monday, November 17th]

Ah- thanks for the explanation.

I was under the impression for some reason you are a stay at home mom.

I will say your answer revealed some things that I relate to. There seems to be a lot of pent up resentment over expectations (either yours or his). That makes sense and I experienced that, though at the time I couldn’t see it.

So you have built a labor intensive life for yourself and are overwhelmed. That’s going to take some unwinding. It also makes sense why you feel stressed about the rigid schedule.

Bigger changes are needed, cleaning is the tip of the iceberg.

You will first need to address your depression. That isn’t helping with the overwhelm. I am sorry I pushed but it was hard to understand the pushback on a normal thing. I will say if you conducted your affair at night staying up after he went to bed that is a major trigger for him. And your marriage will not improve without that being a daily trigger..the title of your post says how do I reassure him? And that unfortunately is the number one answer due to the idea that you are continuing behavior that he now associates with an affair.

I used to fantasize about just moving into a one bedroom apartment and letting everyone else fend for themselves. I had to really look at my affair to realize that it was my way of blowing up this unattainable life that kept me on a hamsters wheel to the place of exhaustion. My spirit was completely gone.

I understand how hard it is to make room for others when you feel like you are suffocating.

I don’t know if you will be able to save your marriage until you figure out the changes to save yourself. I would look at possibly downsizing your life honestly. More doesn’t mean happier.

The downside for your marriage here is that without making that space for him, remorse can not fully enter. Guilt and shame and resentment doesn’t give him the idea that you see him or his pain. And I understand how you just may not have that all down yet, these are early days, and it took me a while to recognize I helped create a life that I thought was a dream that became a nightmare. By the time I was finally putting on my oxygen mask my husband was asking for a divorce.

Hire a dependable cleaning company that background checks employees and is licensed and insurances and have them come when you aren’t home. I had a hard time doing that but with someone routinely cleaning for me I started to breathe a little. I also started paying recently to have my groceries delivered.

I wanted to die too. I understand where you are. The numbness was so pervasive.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:19 PM, Monday, November 17th]

Duplicate post

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:15 PM, Monday, November 17th]

I will never trust my WH again.

I still have all the check points in place. I don’t check them as often but I will never stop verifying.

The good thing though is that now if it’s something that might make me uneasy my husband does something reassuring without being prompted. For example I went home early from being sick and I usually pick him up from work. Instead he offered to take an uber. It made me nervous. I know I can check his uber account. But instead he immediately sent me the uber info so I could track him.

I feel like this issue is like a cabinet that's so disorganized and stuffed full of things that it's become dysfunctional, and my H is saying "Clean the cabinet already! I can't find anything in it. We can't even close it... Why isn't it clean yet?" But also "Don't take everything out of the cabinet; you'll just make a mess outside of it." Sure, maybe the area in front of the cabinet will be messy while I'm cleaning it out, but what I really need to do is take everything out, remove the garbage and re-home the things that don't belong there, and replace everything back inside one item at a time in a neat and organized manner... I can't keep trying to organize it with everything still inside; it's not working.

That is to say, even though it gives him anxiety when I stay up late or he feels rejected when I choose to do chores on the weekends instead of spending time with him, I have to temporarily choose to do chores late at night and on the weekends until I'm caught up, otherwise our relationship will continue to be dysfunctional. Then I can go back to going to bed with him and spending time with him on the weekends... I have tried for years to get him to relax his standards and cut me a little slack, but it's clear that's not happening. The cabinet must be emptied.

I will continue doing my best to offer transparency/accountability/verifiability wherever else I can.

Howcthappen: Proactivity is a good suggestion. It seems like that's something he wants.. Like, yesterday I was so exhausted after my weekend at work that I had to stop at a service plaza and nap on the way home, and then stop again 50 miles later to get a coffee and something sugary, so I would stop falling asleep at the wheel...H was upset that my normally 2.5 hour drive ended up being 4 hours, even though he could check to see where my car and phone were. I had called to say I was leaving the workplace, but did not communicate when I was stopping (mostly because I wasn't sure for how long I would be stopped.) I guess I should have done that. Will keep that in mind going forward.

That is to say, even though it gives him anxiety when I stay up late or he feels rejected when I choose to do chores on the weekends instead of spending time with him, I have to temporarily choose to do chores late at night and on the weekends until I'm caught up, otherwise our relationship will continue to be dysfunctional.

Okay, I am going to take a run at this one other way and then I will leave it be.

What if what you asked him to do was learn to deal with his feelings about the mess, and help him with the feelings he has that are more pressing?

It just seems backwards to me that you want him to deal with the triggers of the affair by himself but you take ownership over his OCD issues?

And you don’t have to answer that here, for me. I am not here to belabor this or give you a hard time, I just wanted to leave you with that thought.

A cleaner can do the work you are choosing to focus on and you are the only one who can do what is needs to help him be assured. To me this feels like avoidance. Avoidance is how we get ourselves backed into corners that don’t serve us very well. Not only that but you do deserve to engage in personal care and enrichment as well. In fact, that was a key part of my recovery and helped me cope with the load I was carrying. So I am not just advocating for his needs here- but the last thing you need to be stressed about is housework. Recovery is like a full time job, especially when you are trudging through the swamp of depression.

I also feel this logic is maybe rooted in shame. Like you are saying to yourself if you can be the wife he wanted- neat, organized, wanting to look good for him, etc, then you can earn him back?

Or are you just so sick of his unrealistic expectations and critical nature that you feel managing that is the only way you can feel normal again?

Again, this is all good for thought, not really questions for me or the forum, you are not on trial here and I never want someone to feel that way. I just wanted you to really think about what it is you are deciding in terms of priorities.

When I was going through this same thing, my therapist told me to sort my could and shoulds. She basically had me cease most of any performative things. Those things for me were rooted differently- I had perfectionist tendencies. But perfectionism is also rooted in shame. And it was terrifying for me to lower them in my list. But it also taught me I could be loved for me and not all the services I perform.

Cleaning the house is something he should be able to manage his feelings on. Repairing what has been broken is something he cannot do on his own. And I think you are underestimating how different the damage from an affair is to not having a clean house.

That’s all I will say because I am afraid I am being a bit aggressive when you are dealing with a lot internally right now. I couldn’t function at all in the months after dday.

It’s just that recovering from infidelity is supposed to take years, isn’t it? And he doesn’t act like he hates me when he’s in his feelings about the infidelity, but he does act like he hates me when the house is a mess…I figure if I take a month or two to focus on the house, then he’ll stop acting like he hates me, and I can not only give him a peaceful place to come home to, but also feel better about myself and be better able to show up for him when he’s working through the infidelity-associated feelings…

Or it’ll backfire because he’ll start acting super loving towards me and I’ll be correct that his love is conditional on the state of the house and not inherent because of who I am as a person… One of the two outcomes, for sure, though.

conditional on the state of the house and not inherent because of who I am as a person

You are your actions.

Who you are as a person gets expressed through your actions.

I am me. I am not just the person who cleans his house and looks after his dependents. I have thoughts, feelings, opinions, experiences, dreams, goals, traits... if he doesn't love those things in and of themselves, or only loves them when the house is in order, then he doesn't love me.

It’s just that recovering from infidelity is supposed to take years, isn’t it?

Yes, but think of it as a gradient. You are in the most intense time of that gradient. This is ER time. All hands on deck. He will go from shock to anger, you aren’t seeing the hate because he is still in shock. When we say recovery takes years, it’s not going to be like it is the first six months. Those are the worst. The second six months a little better usually or worse, depending on how the triage time goes. The one where triage went worse, higher chance of choosing to divorce because the emotional exhaustion gets pretty strong in the bs.

My husband asked for a divorce in month ten because do you know who was really bad at all this? ME. It’s a miracle we are still married.

I missed the highs of having an Ap, experienced terrible depression over it. I resented my husband for a lot of the same stuff you are saying here. I wasn’t sure if I could love him again as a result, my heart had been hardened by the resentments I carried. But eventually I saw my resentments were misguided, that I had created a lot of them myself. I am the one that thought I needed to be perfect and until I was I would never get love. That belief, you know the one caused by I didn’t actually love myself had strangled my ability to believe he could love me over the years. Reality is I didn’t understand myself and never learned to communicate my needs, didn’t really know what they were exactly.

Now that I am healthier my relationships are all healthier, I can see I really like to feel appreciated and seen for what I do, especially because I work very hard . I learned to create that by appreciating him more and expressing it. And making sure to acknowledge when he did it that it was meaningful to me. Now we do this for each other all the time and we both love it.

These were my cabinets, so to speak. They may not be yours. You may have married a man who is critical and that can be an erosion to a woman’s heart when you are giving your all. And he may need to figure that out. But he isn’t capable of that in these moments because right now he is still trying to process betrayal. So the recovery is deal with the affair first and then start to deal with the pre-A relationship.

That takes a lot from someone who feels they have nothing left to give. I fully comprehend that because I couldn’t muster it either at first. It’s one of my biggest regrets outside of the affair itself - choosing to remain avoidant in those early times when I know he did need me the most

And he doesn’t act like he hates me when he’s in his feelings about the infidelity, but he does act like he hates me when the house is a mess…I figure if I take a month or two to focus on the house, then he’ll stop acting like he hates me, and I can not only give him a peaceful place to come home to, but also feel better about myself and be better able to show up for him when he’s working through the infidelity-associated feelings…

I think you need to see that the fact he hates the house is not impeccable has nothing to do with you. This is not a moral failing on your end. Cleaning the house will likely always be an issue for you. Especially in child reading years where you all live so far away from your child’s school.

The cabinet is more that by the way- you all have not successfully negotiated a living situation that works for both of you. It sounds like he works a lot and you have what a 1.5 hour round trip to drop and pick up your daughter each day? The problem with housework is likely to meet his standards you are going to be needing to clean more like 8 hours a week. You have not set up enough time for that. It’s unreasonable.

He needs to see that he has to change his priorities- if he wants you available to spend time with him all weekend (which is a good thing- he wants quality time) then he has to reprioritize his need for domestic perfection. Or you need to downsize and maybe not work. Or you need to hire a cleaner you can trust to do wthings while you are gone. This is not going to go away by getting the house up to snuff.

Playing catch up is always going to be a thing, especially if you can’t do it on the weekends. I don’t have kids at home anymore, and I can’t get much of anything done after work by the time i make dinner and maybe get a few things done I am beat for the day.

However, the thing that will actually make or break your marriage right now is him laying in bed night after night wondering if you are up doing things you shouldn’t be doing - at worst, and at best reminding him daily what that all looked like and feeling as though he is your last priority. And maybe he is and has earned that place in your heart during your pre- a marriage. Which could have been dealt with- the resentment you have are likely more about the self abandonment you did to make it all work with the least resistance possible.

Can you put yourself in his shoes? Let’s say he had been staying up late and talking to another woman. And then you found out and he says it’s over but he doesn’t resume any sort of normal schedule and keeps staying up instead of coming to bed with you. How would you feel laying there each night? Or when you wake up and he still hasn’t made it to bed?

I think you are focused on the house because you feel you have failed him and now you are trying to redeem yourself by trying harder to twist yourself into a pretzel to be what you are visioning that he needs.

Or it’ll backfire because he’ll start acting super loving towards me and I’ll be correct that his love is conditional on the state of the house and not inherent because of who I am as a person… One of the two outcomes, for sure, though

So this is a telling fear. I actually found out that my husband did love me but the opposite way. He still loved me when I stopped doing all those things I woke do to hustle for his love. I literally let go of most shit the entire first year. I am not saying my house was filthy, but it was not my normal standard. We got a cleaner during that time too that came and did the surfaces once a week. Wiped all the counters down and did the floors. But a show stopper the house was not. And instead I spent time with him, time in therapy, and time finding some enrichment activities so that I had joy in my life that didn’t include trying to get outside validation from somewhere else.

The reality is you need to feel loved for who you are not what you can offer in productivity. You don’t feel that security from him. That could be real or imagined. Mine was imagined. And if it’s real, I don’t know you will ever have the heart to really go up the hill of reconciliation.

Right now it’s normal that you are out of gas, depressed, doing things that may not be logical to feel like you are getting somewhere. I am just saying slow down and think about what makes sense here? Not resting at all is not going to help you with the burnout that likely led to this affair. It’s not going to make you a better wife. You aren’t going to love yourself more by conquering the house. You are going to love yourself more by accepting your limitations, accepting the rest you need, and seeing if the soft places inside of both of you can come together again.

I know everything feels like chaos and this is how you put some order to it. But you do not have to be the one to physically do all of it to get the same effect.

I am me. I am not just the person who cleans his house and looks after his dependents. I have thoughts, feelings, opinions, experiences, dreams, goals, traits... if he doesn't love those things in and of themselves, or only loves them when the house is in order, then he doesn't love me

You are correct. And you need to fully embrace this more.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:45 PM, Tuesday, November 18th]

Thank you for bearing with me, HikingOut. I want you to know that I do very much value your advice and I'm trying to take in and really digest your words. Today I am less worked up about the situation, and I think that helps a lot with "clearing out my ears," so to speak.

So it will possibly get worse. I will have to remember that... I keep thinking that maybe we're special and have made a remarkable amount of progress in a relatively short amount of time, but that's probably pretty unlikely. My inner Capricorn still wants to control things and be "better" or more adept at everything than others, even though it's definitely NOT a healing competition. Time to put a boot on that hubris, huh?

He needs to see that he has to change his priorities- if he wants you available to spend time with him all weekend (which is a good thing- he wants quality time) then he has to reprioritize his need for domestic perfection.

I have little confidence that he can do this. I have tried to convince him, and I feel like maybe he has been trying, for years now. He has OCD; the house being dirty and out of order makes him feel out of control, and I suspect it brings up triggers from his childhood abuse which caused the OCD. I understand the underlying mechanisms and reasons for his responses to the mess.

We spoke last night, and I thank God for the quality and productivity of that conversation. I talked about my thoughts on "love" as a both a feeling and an action, and how there can be a discrepancy between how one partner feels towards the other, and whether or not the other feels loved. This was to preface letting him know that I don't feel loved when he reacts the way he does to the house being a mess, and that I'm trying to sort out how much of that unloved feeling is coming from me, and how much is coming from him. (I do think it's a little bit of both.)

He told me that he reasons that I know how he feels when the house is a mess, and that he doesn't feel cared for if it comes home and looks like that. He indicated that he thought it was a difference in standards, and that he gets it in his head that I don't think his feelings matter enough to meet his standards for the home. I told him that I also get stressed out by the mess and chaos, given my ADHD and further weakened ability to focus in that kind of environment, and that I am really trying to meet his standards, but I just feel overwhelmed. I feel like he heard that.

I spoke about my plan to de-center time spent together in order to catch up. Obviously he wasn't pleased to hear it, but I think he understands that he can't have both right now. He told me about the anxiety he gets when I stay up late, and I let him know I totally get it, but I think this is unfortunately necessary right now. He cried some, and I held him and (hopefully) offered some comfort.

We talked about my (perceived?) difficulty with fitting a professional cleaner into my schedule and the rigidity it induces, and how I feel that it's quick and easy enough to tidy the house, however unquickly it untidies itself, so I want to be home in order to tidy ahead of the cleaner so they can actually focus on cleaning, since the house doesn't usually get dirty as fast as it gets untidy again. Plus there are a couple areas that need so much attention that they wouldn't be appropriate projects for a cleaner... So I think what we will do is the buckle-down for a couple months to catch up, and then hire the cleaner to help with maintenance. Feels like a solid plan to me.

There is definitely still the split between not wanting to have to have a clean house in order to "deserve" his love, and wanting to meet his needs, ease his discomfort, and make him happy as his spouse. It's a difficult thing to balance.

I’m afraid this might not be helpful, but here goes.

BH here.

There is no balance for me. If my xWW said, "I need to vacuum, or we can fool around.", it’d be fooling around for me, all day, every day. And when we were done, and she got up to vacuum, I’d want to know if more fooling around was an option (or cuddling, or any other intimacy).

My wife is pretty good at cooking and cleaning. But I think she does that stuff for her, not really for me. In any event, I don’t value her for that stuff at all. I can pay to have all that done, if need be.

I value her for things I can’t pay for, or get from anyone but her. And I want as much of that as I can get. And I resent anything that gets in the way. ("I spent all day cooking and cleaning, and now I’m too tired to pay attention to you." Grrr!)

Just had a thought… For the past couple years, I’ve been going away for 10 day hiking trips with my daughter. BH doesn’t go because he’s not that into it and can’t take off work…Is that over now ?

[This message edited by Ghostie at 4:09 AM, Thursday, November 20th]

Not necessarily.

It may not be the thing to do right this second, because absence can create a lot of anxiety for the bs. But it can likely resume if your husband is comfortable with it when things settle down a bit.

It’s more of a personal preference thing.

I think you should expect higher anxiety around work trips. I stopped traveling for work for a long while as long as I could hold it off anyway.

I would discuss it with him but if you don’t have a trip planned anytime soon I would just leave it be for now, and see how he is feeling closer to the time you would be planning it.