Trying to work this out but I'm still just so sad

A little background: Found out on 10/26/24 that my husband has been having an emotional affair for 2 plus years that turned physical over the past year. They were work partners (the working relationship ended when the affair ended, thankfully--her husband completely shut down everything so there has been no contact since) who were supposedly in the process of ending the physical part of the relationship in late October when her husband discovered all the texts on her phone and blew everything up. My husband had to come clean and tell me everything so I wouldn’t hear it from her husband. I had no idea and was completely blindsided about the relationship. They only ever met at his office during work hours and I never even knew about any of their feelings for each other. Apparently they would text and call each other frequently whenever their spouses weren’t around or when they were out running errands, etc. Since the discovery, All contact with her has been cut off and we are working at rebuilding our relationship. We immediately started couples counseling as he says he 100% wants our marriage to work, it was never supposed to happen like this, he was never going to leave me, he never wanted to hurt me, he was just being selfish and not thinking things through, etc. I'm sure many of you have heard it all before. On the plus side, he has been nothing but open and supportive of me during this process. He is doing everything right, we are having constant open conversations and full transparency as we are working toward rebuilding an entirely new relationship (not trying to save the old one as that obviously was not working). Over the past several years (even before her) we had lost our intimacy and our deep emotional connection, although we still were great friends, partners, enjoyed being together, etc, it wasn't the depth of relationship that we had had many years ago or even that we are starting to have now. We have known each other for 44 years and been married for 33, so we have a lot of history together. So now we have made our relationship our top priority and are working on being intimate again and just trying to enjoy each other and have fun together, which we kind of had forgotten how to do. We also both started individual counseling as well as the couples therapy; all of this has been helpful and I feel we are going in the right direction. He has alot of guilt over what he did and about seeing me be so devastated that I am glad he is working through this with his own therapist. I have hope for the future but it’s so hard not to focus on the past and all the shit that went on right under my nose that I never even suspected because I had so much trust in him. I continue to have a layer of pain that is an undercurrent to everything I do. I feel so fragile and any little thing can set me off or trigger me to have all the negative thoughts about them come rushing back in. I know what I need to do--let go of the past and things I can't control and choices he made; get through the present one day at a time, and focus on the future. I know that I have complete control over whether I choose to keep working on the marriage or whether I choose to leave; I may have been powerless before, but I am not anymore. But it's so hard to do it every single day and still function with the daily obligations of life. At times I really want this to work and other times I just want to punish him for everything he put me through and tell him to get out. I still cry every day, and much of the time I am not crying I am just right on the edge of tears. I haven't slept through the night since it happened. And those feeling are all mixed up with the positive ones about how our relationship is changing and hopefully will be stronger and better than ever. I know many of you have used the term emotional rollercoaster and that is exactly what I am on. I know it has been such a relatively short time since DDay--10 weeks, but it feels like forever when you are in it. To further complicate things, his mom died suddenly last week and now there is a whole layer of extra sadness for us on top of everything else. Oh and I forgot to mention, her husband thought I should know what I was dealing with so last month he sent me screen shots of some of their texts-- yeah, that was really helpful, thanks so much. I am so tired of feeling like this and wondering if I will ever be able to forgive his betrayal. He was living a completely separate life from me for 2 years and I never even knew. Christmas was really fun since this time last year was when they moved their relationship into the physical realm. I guess I just want to hear from people who are going through this with me so I don't feel so alone. I can talk to friends but no one can understand how this feels except someone who has been there. Thanks for giving me a place to share. Sorry I haven't learned all the abbreviations everyone uses and just don't feel like trying to figure them all out.

19 comments posted: Monday, January 6th, 2025