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Hi WS
My OH cheated when our son was 4 weeks old, and whilst my dad was dying and went and stopped in a hotel with AP after a night out on the night of the day he died. He never once texted me to see if I was ok, and showed zero remorse on DD - 2 days before my dad's funeral. He left me and chased after her - telling her he wanted to marry her, he had been in love with her for years etc. He came back after he realised AP had finished with him completely.

I guess I'm trying to figure out this mentality, he's now very apologetic and is putting 100% into fixing things 6 months on whilst I'm left dealing with the trauma of it all.

Did any love or remorse disappear for your BS when you were focussed on AP?

Dear hyperactivepineapple,

I am so sorry for what you have suffered. What a terrible betrayal, to have your OH cheat when you were so vulnerable. 6 months on, you have a new baby, still grieving your father and now this to deal with. I hope you don't mind me adding you to my prayers.

When I was cheating, I was intensely selfish. I try not to be judgmental about myself when saying this. I was a terribly hurting person. The thing about terribly hurting people is that they can hurt other people, even worse than they are hurting themselves, and they are so self-focused that they literally don't see or even imagine other people's pain. For me, my BS didn't really exist as a person with feelings or desires or hurts while I was cheating. I was so self-focused that nothing much existed.

Your husband may not identify his cheating as rooted in being terribly hurting, but I think that there was something going on inside of him that erased you. Unless he is a sociopath or enjoys seeing other people suffering, it's not that he pondered what you were going through as a new mother or the daughter of a dying father; he likely didn't think about it at all, or hurried his thoughts away when he did start to think about you. Now that he's actually thinking about you again, I'm not surprised that he is apologetic. I hope that he is able to work a bit harder on understanding how he got to the point of engaging with an AP in the first place, so that he can fix up whatever was in him that made that seem like a good idea.

Take care, I am sorry for the loss of your father, and I hope you enjoy moments of sweetness with your baby.

Dear ws s thank you for your input and support! It’s invaluable! My question is if you felt at some point that enough was enough with the rumination of your bs. If you experienced that you cannot carry anymore the burden lets say. If you felt that your bs s sorrow was too much after three years in reconciliation. If you felt pressure. If you felt that you are not happy but at the same time you claim that you love your bs and that she is your only family.

Hi, everyone. My question is particularly for "repeat" WSs who expressed genuine deep remorse the first time, worked on the relationship, and then had a relapse after several years (either with the same or a different AP, either in the same or a different relationship).

What were the mental hoops you jumped through to justify your actions to yourself, despite past experience where you saw the BS broken? Is there anything you could have heard from a friend that would have helped you come out of the fog?

I am not a repeat offender, but I feel like I can provide some insight into this. First would highlight that someone may have "worked on the relationship", but a someone who could inflict that damage again likely never undertook the significant effort to understand why they made their terrible choices and what they need to do to heal whatever is broken inside them. I can honestly say that my marriage was really good and I could not think of a single thing that my wife was doing or not doing that resulted in my affair. The foundational issues that contributed to my choices included being a very broken and traumatized individual that felt entitled and selfish. I was much younger and immature with lots of unresolved trauma that created a pattern of me hiding things I was ashamed of from my wife resulting in me being able to compartmentalize so much that the thought of what I was doing never crossed my mind when I was with AP. For years after my brain kept that wall in place, but when that wall started to crumble years later and I realized the gravity of what I had done I hit rock bottom. I have spent time in IC deconstructing how I got to this point and feel like I understand myself for the first time in 40 years and the thought of ever betraying my wife again makes me physical ill.

My dad was a serial cheater and that continued deep into his old age (multiple wives). He never could look introspectively to understand why he continued to destroy his life and the lives of those who he should have been doing everything to protect. I firmly believe that most WS have deep seated issues that will plague their relationship(s) until they work on resolving them. Someone can think they feel guilty and shameful for their actions, work on the marriage, etc, but that will not fix what contributed to their infidelity until they work on themselves.

Thank you for sharing your story, feelingverylow. I appreciate your insight. I'm glad you have been able to work on your previous unresolved trauma in IC.