Forgive or move on? Help!

[rachel801]

I think I'm damaged forever. That I'll never believe or trust any man ever again. I trusted him with my life (and still do). I have even considered tolerating his cheating, just to save everything we have, and just turn a blind eye. I guess a lot of married women with kids do this to not break up their family. And to be honest, I don't know if I could be faithful to someone who is unfaithful to me.

[rachel801]

When I was a year out of high school I started living with a man and a year later we decided to get married. Two weeks before the wedding I found some pretty torid writing he'd been doing to an ex. This was long before internet, cell phones or even pc's, so it was all on paper. I confronted him with it and a pretty intense scene followed. He very dramtically swore he loved me, that he would never have mailed this stuff and would kill himself if I left. I forgave him and thought it was all OK. We got married and I spent the next few years dealing with him having affair after affair (there were other problems too). He was furious when I left, couldn't believe it.

Unless you want a life time of this, you are going to have to deal with, the sooner the better.

Wow that's really rough. I guess men won't change until they hit rock bottom, or until they know what they have to lose. I'm glad you shared that story so I can learn from your mistake rather than making it myself...I just think if this happened again in 10 years, or when we had a couple of kids, I would be devastated and I would kick myself for not breaking it off.

[WildChild]

I'm glad you shared that story so I can learn from your mistake rather than making it myself....

That's the idea. I figure whatever stuff I've gone through, if I can share the story and help someone else not make the same mistake then it's good.

I understand what you say about having a hard time trusting again, but you are young and this is one time. Don't give up yet.

[rachel801]

I had an opportunity to really talk to him about what happened. He said he wasn't sorry about contacting his ex, because he can never forget what he saw me doing with his best friend, (he was living in our house with us at the time). He said if it had been any other person he would have forgiven me. I can't communicate to him that it doesn't matter and I have no feelings for this person, I was betrayed and was in a terrible place. I don't think he has fully forgiven me because he is still swimming in the past. I know we still love each other, but this has proven too much for him. Every time he thinks of his friend he wants to murder him. He is filled with rage and it's destroying him to suppress it. We are going on this trip, but I don't know how we're going to make it.

He said "You're not my princess anymore" and that "I don't treasure you the way I used to." So it sounds to me like it's pretty much over. The fact that he can't see his own mistakes tells me that he's not strong enough yet to forgive me. Whenever I approach him he tells me to leave him alone or he threatens to leave.

Yet I have the incredible urge to comfort him, and when I hug him his heart rate slows and he is calmer. I try to counsel him and tell him how I feel, but it's not getting through, and it always ends up with him getting angry. Everything sets him off and he's afraid of even being close to me because he may get angry. He's suffering tremendously because he has no one to talk to, no outlet. What should do I do?

[Beautiful Disaster]

Cheating is wrong, no matter what the excuse. But your last post sounds like you've been rejected.....rejected by a man who cheated on you once that you know of, and has been emailing an ex. And what I don't quite understand about that is, shouldn't you be feeling the same way he described feeling?

Your relationship was broken the second he cheated. Broken even further when you cheated. You chose to stay, he chose to stay, that does not give him a free pass to cheat on you when he feels like it.

Ask yourself this, why can he only seem to see your indiscretion....yet seems to have no shame about his own?

My thought, he's not contacting his ex to get you back, or because he's angry at you.....he's doing it because he wants to....just like when he cheated the first time.

[rachel801]

I agree. Cheating is wrong. We both wronged. I think he had insecurity issues in the beginning of our relationship that we never fully addressed.

He says that if it had been ANYONE else than his best friend, he would have forgiven me. But not only did I betray him with someone he trusted, but he was betrayed by two of his closest friends, and he won't be able to trust anyone anymore. He said he cheated and regretted it immensely, and decided to settle down and marry me. Proposing took him 8 years to be sure (he had divorced parents) and four days later, he finds out that everything was a lie.

He said at least when he cheated he had enough respect for me to hide it from me so that I'd never find out and get hurt. He doesn't understand how I could do this to him in his FACE, with him PRESENT, in our own HOUSE that we share together. I think this hurt him on so many more levels than just the betrayal.

I think he doesn't see how I was hurt too, and how I didn't even possess the powers to hide it. Nor did I mean for it to be his friend, but that his friend was there to "comfort me" and take advantage at a really weak moment of my life. How I didn't confront him about it when I found out because he just proposed to me and I really wanted to marry him.

When I tell him these things it just makes him angry. We are going on vacation tomorrow, but have been sleeping in separate beds for 3 days. We are both hurting so deeply that it causes us physical pain

[Karma3]

Wow, what a truly difficult situation.
Both of you did wrong but he still cannot see how hurt you are, only him. He also maintains that he hid it from you, so he should be applauded for that?
He sounds very selfish, and it is very difficult to reason with selfish people....they seem to only see things THEIR way. Anything else presented to them never seems to make sense to them, only how they see it.

[WildChild]

Time to say good bye. You were both wrong, he can't let go of it. Staying will do neither of you any good.

[kms]

I think sometimes there comes a point in any relationship when despite the love between two people, the shattered pieces and deep pain is much greater than the the bond of love can overcome. Sometimes there's just too much hurt, too much betrayal. Even if both of you love each other, it may be that because of that love the knowledge of what the other has done makes it impossible to ever see the other person in the same way again. The innocent steadfast devotion that we desire from the one we love can never exist any longer.

Now, at what point does the breaking point occur? I think that depends on the individual. Some people can handle very little; others are willing to try to overcome much more. It sounds like you are willing to attempt to piece things back together, but honestly I think what he is dealing with is worse. He cheated when you were apart, right? Meaning he needed physical fulfillment and wasn't looking for anything serious, and had no intention of hurting you. Yes he is in contact with that woman still, which means that he got attached somehow (which should indicate to him that cheating always has consequences). The bigger thing though is that you intentionally cheated on him with someone he knew, in a place that you both share and is considered private. This was in his home, his safe place, his retreat. And he was violated in the deepest possible way. You didn't do it out on the street or somewhere else, you did it at his own home. As others have mentioned, this is now a CONSTANT reminder of what happened. Every time he sees his friend, he remembers. Every time he's in his own house, he remembers. Every time he sees you, he remembers. For you, his cheating was more abstract in that you don't have a face or a known person to picture, you don't have a treasured location to remind you, you didn't actually see it. For him, every single aspect of your cheating is very real to him; he experienced every part of it. So, I can imagine that it would be SO hard to recover from. He may well still love you and still desire to be with you, but he may need some time to recover and to get over it. He may not know if he can get over it at this point or not.

I think the vacation would be good to get yourselves out of the environment that haunts him, to put everything aside and be in a neutral place that has no negativity attached to it. Maybe just spend some time focusing on each other, reconnected, not pushing him to state his feelings for you or declare his plans for the relationship.... just be together. Let that be it for now. Both of you will need time to learn how to trust each other again. To prove to each other that you are trustworthy. It can't be pushed, it can't be done overnight. It will need time, and it will have to be a step by step, careful process. And it can only be done if both are willing.

[Texasred]

Three months ago, I found out through his best friend that he cheated on me several times with multiple women, at a time when our relationship was long distance. I was angry, so I had a short, meaningless fling with the same friend,...

Now THERE was a guy with an agenda!

Wildchild and Little both gave you good advice, but let me re-emphasize:
Move on, now before you waste any more time on someone whose values are not really like yours.

Or are they?