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Unfortunately, things just keep getting worse. I’m sure many of you can relate. I trusted my WP when he said the affair was over and he wasn’t in contact with AP anymore. And then two days ago I found emails showing he is talking to her, and had booked flights to go see her. How fucking stupid of me to trust him, when he already betrayed my trust so fully.

We were trying to work through the betrayal and reconcile. Now that is up in the air. He is not sure if he wants me, and I am so hurt I am not sure if I should stay. Our 12 year anniversary is this weekend. He has been my person for half of my life. I can’t imagine life without him, but I also don’t know how I can heal from this. We have been trying for years for kids, including years of IVF. But I just turned 40. I know the odds are already stacked against me, so it also feels like I’m not only losing him, but losing this last chance to be a parent.

Meanwhile, life just keeps on going. I am fortunate to have a good job, and have been taking sick days here and there, but work just piles up. I have a pretty person-facing job, so I have to constantly put on a happy face and act like everything is fine, which is exhausting. I feel like I barely have the capacity to fold laundry right now, much less be a functioning employee.

How did you all manage to keep going through the day-to-day motions? Did you share what has happening with your boss at all? Go on medical leave? Just power through?

[This message edited by Shrug6645 at 4:13 PM, Friday, August 28th]

Gently, you experienced a 2nd d-day. IMO, the most important question you need to answer is: do you want him?

You're the prize. He isn't. You didn't fail. He did. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with him?

I'm really sorry you're in this sitch.

I kept my focus on what I wanted and its feasibility. I was forced to move my body to some extent, and I knew I had to drink water. Food, though, and sleep ... I went with my flow.

We also had a great MC who was also my W's IC.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:56 PM, Friday, August 28th]

Be his choice, not his option, because the first is love and the second is an insult.

I have to admit, I was a much worse employee for a while there. I didn’t have the internal capacity to be my best self, not even close. I suppose I found the bare minimum and kept up with that and did a bit of white knuckling. It’s really hard.

How fucking stupid of me to trust him, when he already betrayed my trust so fully.

You are not stupid, you are just human. A ton of us have done the same, you are doing your best to make a path forward in an impossibly difficult situation. This is not the time to be criticizing yourself like that.

I can’t imagine life without him, but I also don’t know how I can heal from this.

You can absolutely heal, pinky swear 🤙🏼It’s a long, hard journey, but the pain and darkness are temporary.

You don’t have to figure out what the future will be right now. You don’t have to decide if you want to stay married on anyone’s timeline but your own. Take care of yourself, let the shock calm down, figure out what you want from there.

Best wishes.

When it comes to the question of having a baby, I totally understand the importance this holds, especially having been through lots of fertility treatments. I would caution about making it part of your decision of whether to stay in this relationship. There are other routes to becoming a parent, and having been through my husband being unfaithful while I was pregnant and postpartum, I would choose planned single parenthood over that absolutely any day.

I also have a people-facing job that needs my emotions to be under control. It really did affect my career, unfortunately, as I had to drop various projects. I had to be signed off sick when I first found out about his affair, and later had to tell my Manager what was going on because I needed her to understand what I was dealing with and some accommodations recommended by occupational health (I had never done any of this before and it felt really difficult, but was necessary). She was very understanding and the conversation went much better than I was expecting. I don't know your employer, but if you do decide to share some of what you're dealing with, it might go better than you think. Good luck.

Dear shrug .
You are not stupid .. 12 years is a long time of course you would want to trust and believe that this person wouldn’t betray you, especially a second time. I am only 35 but I have also had the same feelings about it being my last chance to have children if I do leave my partner. The person above is correct though, it would be worse to have a kid with someone who isn’t treating you well. There is still hope to have kids in your 40s and if not you could find another pathway , adoption or foster. I’m not super religious but I do believe that god has a plan for us that we never know how it’s going to work out. But it’s hard to reconcile your image of the future you wanted with the current feelings of betrayal. That is what I am going through too. It’s like giving up on your dream. Or being forced to give up on it . Literally idk how to keep going either I just keep putting one foot in front of the other , trying to distract myself when I can , but a lot of days I just sleep all day. My house is a mess. But what I do know that is however it turns out, you will eventually feel better. I even put a note in my calendar a month from d day that says "do you feel a little better yet ?" Because I know it will be hard but we will somehow someday begin feeling like ourselves again. Right now you don’t have to make a decision - you are in shock. But you should detach a little bit. Don’t beg him or plead with him or even get him to try and see your point of view. Focus only on taking care of yourself and you can observe what he does in the meantime and make your decision from there .

At the time of my DDay, I was a cashier in a very busy store that everyone knows, so obviously face to face with hundreds of customers daily. Honestly, it was my salvation. I totally compartmentalized my sitch at home, and tried to just focus on work while at work. I did semi-mention what was going on to a co-worker, and she ran that info right to my slightly higher-up manager the weekend I found out, and that manager did take me off of my till and sent me out into the store to fold clothes. I wasn't mad about it as just doing something mindless wasn't exactly the worst thing for me at the time but being in front of the customers was ok for me, too.

I did have to go to my actual supervisor eventually because I needed a specific day/time off weekly for therapy. I didn't really get into my specifics, just said that I was newly separated and I NEEDED therapy. When you work in retail, it's all about the needs of the business, I get that, and I am grateful to this day that she said ok, what do you need, and made sure I got it as long as I needed it.

I'm sad to hear that really you were trying to work through the betrayal and reconcile. He certainly wasn't. He is not currently a candidate for reconciliation, I'm afraid. Nor is he a candidate to be a father to your children! As others have said, perhaps your journey just looks different, and isn't necessarily your last chance.

Since I am self-employed with no employees I just had to keep moving forward with work. About 4 days after D-Day I remember sitting on the floor at a job site looking around at all of the work I needed to do and I honestly contemplated picking up my tools and just abandoning the project and the customer. If you knew anything about me you would understand this is the exact opposite of who I am when it comes to my work ethic. But my brain was just beyond overloaded

So I picked up my phone and called a friend who is a fellow electrician and when he answered I just said I need help and in an instant he knew something was wrong so he asked what's wrong, what's going on?

I told him about the affair and told him I am drowning on this job site and I don't know what to do. He asked for the address and said I am working close by and I will come over when I get off work. He walked in, I showed him where I was and what needed to be done and he stayed for a couple of hours and then said I will come here after work each day and Saturday and Sunday if necessary to help you

He took control and I pretty much became his assistant and it was exactly what I needed because I just couldn't focus.

I think all of us feel like fools for a while. I remember thinking how could I be so blind? I remember doing the Pick Me dance. I remember being afraid to say or do anything that might upset her out of fear that she would tell me the relationship is over and I'm going to be with my AP.

It took a while to break out of the Pick Me dance mindset. But once you do so, once you do the 180, life becomes much better, at least it did for me. Once I was able to accept the fact that I am in control of nothing other than myself life became much easier. When I accepted the reality that an affair is a possibility in every relationship from day one till the relationship ends or someone dies, life became easier. I'm sure this sounds incredibly jaded and pessimistic to some but in hindsight that's reality.

The question I ask of you is, is he the type of man that you think would make a great father figure?

I cannot begin to understand your feelings on the possibility of not becoming a mother due to age and I am truly sorry and on top of this you discover his infidelity, not once but twice.

Are you open to the idea of adoption?

We were trying to work through the betrayal and reconcile. Now that is up in the air. He is not sure if he wants me, and I am so hurt I am not sure if I should stay.

This is more common than you think. And I experienced this with my H’s last affair, which was a typical midlife crisis affair.

He too wasn’t sure what he wanted but I can tell you it seemed pretty obvious when he kept saying he wanted a D. And when I found out he continued cheating while pretending to Reconcile— that wasn’t a good situation either.

It’s not that he doesn’t want you. Because this affair has nothing to do with you.

He doesn’t want to give up the ego boost he gets from the affair. Now I’m certain he believes the OW is his soulmate true love schmoopie blah blah blah. But that’s just the fantasy of it all.

It’s NOT real. It’s based on lies they tell each other. It’s an escape from their "boring" lives - you know the one filled with bills and in-laws and food shopping and errands and household stuff.

I was in your shoes. I lived your exact situation.

Except for me on dday2 — I kicked him to the curb and told him I was D him and did the hard 180. Because I no longer cared about saving the marriage. It was about saving myself.

Funny how that got through to him but all those months of trying to talk to him was a waste of time. I didn’t do any of those things to stop the affair — I had every intention of D him. Somehow we managed to Reconcile. But it’s not the same marriage/relationship because I changed.

I’m sorry about your struggles with having kids. You do have options and being a single parent is something you can do. I have a friend who did it and it was a wonderful experience (she adopted her kids).

Keep posting - you are in a very challenging situation. I feel for you and know the pain you are in hearing your partner isn’t sure what he wants.

Read up on the 180 in the Healing Library here at SI. It’s the best thing you can do right now. You have to put yourself first.

Thank you all for your support.

I never thought I would be a single parent. I have started to think about it more, but I think my emotions are too up in the air to consider something so huge. I would be more inclined to look into fostering, but I am not sure how the system would feel about placing kids with a single woman.

The question I ask of you is, is he the type of man that you think would make a great father figure?

Before all of this? I would have said yes, absolutely. But now I cannot say. He is not the person I thought he was, that much is clear.

I am trying to internalize all of your advice to focus on myself. It is hard to feel like our marriage is falling apart, but I need to turn my attention to myself instead.

Funny how that got through to him but all those months of trying to talk to him was a waste of time. I

This resonates with me. It seems like once I really "caught" him and distanced myself, all of a sudden he seems to care. It is really, really hard to believe that his commitment will not waiver, and I am just so tired.

I am so grateful for all of your replies and commiseration. I know that I have to just keep putting one foot in front of another. I know that I am a strong person who has a high tolerance for stress. I know I can keep going.

It is hard to feel like our marriage is falling apart

Gently, your marriage has already fallen apart. Reconciliation is the process of building a new marriage, not saving the old one.

I'm not surprised that he's pursuing you as you pull away. He realizes what he's losing, and he'll become desperate to keep it. Staying strong is hard and exhausting. Forgive yourself if you buckle from time to time, and remember to give yourself some respite from it all.

He is not sure if he wants me

I'll be blunt: Fuckkkkkkkk that guy!

You're worthy of better, and this is your chance to find the woman you used to be and give her all the time and TLC and love you can muster.

You have a lot of life ahead of you. This is your chance to make the most of it.

Big hugs.

Onward.

FF

"I love you like I have never loved anyone else, but I don't think I am in love with you anymore. I need passion in my life and I haven't felt it with you in a long time". These were the EXACT words my H started with when he confessed to his A. It has been over 12 years since that Dday...but those words are seared in my head. At this point he had been home 2 days from a work trip overseas where we had been apart 9 1/2 weeks. I started hugging him and told him that whatever it was that was bothering him...we would be able to work through it.

Then he said the words that changed my perspective about working through things..."I met someone. Her name is Lily." While still hugging him I asked what they had done. At this point I was thinking he met her at the bar at his hotel...or maybe where he was working...and they talked and he became infatuated. The THOUGHT of him having an A was just something my mind wouldn't go to. He said one word..."Everything". Still hugging him...I couldn't fathom what "everything" meant. I asked point blank..."You mean you had sex?" He couldn't bring himself to say it...he just nodded YES.

I had this happen before concerning infidelity...when I caught my 1st H cheating on me. When I realized my 2nd H cheated on me too...my lizard brain took over and it was like I was watching a movie. I immediately moved away from hugging him...told him the M was over...and got up to leave the room...very matter of factly with NO emotion whatsoever. As I was leaving I told him he needed to message the adultery co-conspirator so that they could decide what THEY were going to do moving forward because WE were DONE. NO pick-me-dance like I did with my 1st H. I was NOT going to go through that HELL again!!

Within an hour though...we were talking about R. Only THIS TIME...it was ME who wasn't in love with my H anymore...and he knew without a doubt that he was very much in love with me . Over time I realized what the people on here often said...you have to be willing to LOSE the M in order to SAVE it. Limerance is very STRONG...and it seems like the only way to get OUT of it is REALITY. Some people use the analogy of a person at a party who has had a little too much to drink. They are feeling so GOOD and think they are capable of anything...including driving while drunk. As they are making their way home...they slam into another vehicle and the person in that vehicle is killed. When REALITY sets in...that very good feeling they had is all GONE.

YOU are not stupid Dear Lady...YOU are STRONG! It may not feel like it right now...but YOU will soon see just how VALUABLE someone like you are . Once you get your strength back...you will see that you deserve better!

How did you all manage to keep going through the day-to-day motions? Did you share what has happening with your boss at all? Go on medical leave? Just power through?

I was working in my 1st M...and was a receptionist...so I had to put on a happy face every day. I told my boss everything and she was so helpful to me. She confided in me that she had been cheated on a few years earlier...which really surprised me because she and her H seemed so HAPPY . She held me up on days when I felt like I was falling apart.

One thing I have to say though...my 1st H and I had been trying for me to get pregnant as well. After his A...I got pregnant almost immediately. We did a lot of "hysterical bonding" during that time and I guess it was what worked after all of that MESS!

You have had a 2nd DDay. And he is a gigantic horse's patoot.

Now gently, if he goes through with plans to see AP - change the locks. If AP has a spouse/partner - EXPOSE.

To answer your specific questions:

How did you all manage to keep going through the day-to-day motions?

One foot in front of the other, crying in private a lot. But I kept f***ing going.

Did you share what has happening with your boss at all?

In my case, it got to the point where I had to. It was done confidentially and he kept my confidence.

Go on medical leave?

I did not. But there is no shame in doing so.

Just power through?

Yup. White knuckles and all.

Now - a few corrections to your post:

How fucking stupid of me to trust him, when he already betrayed my trust so fully.

Wrong my friend - how fucking stupid of HIM to betray your trust AGAIN!

We were trying to work through the betrayal and reconcile.

Gently, you were. He was still getting his bread buttered on both ends and liking it.

Our 12 year anniversary is this weekend.

He knew this and still behaved as he chose.

losing this last chance to be a parent.

My dear, this is 2026 and fast approaching 2027. You have options. They just may look different than your vision. Currently, he is not close to co-parent material with you.

I have a pretty person-facing job, so I have to constantly put on a happy face and act like everything is fine, which is exhausting.

I feel this. For the longest time post DDays I pinned a meme of the famous Elizabeth Taylor quote to my mirror, my car, my desk, my monitor, my vanity "Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together" My drink was coffee, I bought a bunch of new lipstick and matching glosses and sparklie undies for good measure. I wore them a lot as they gave me a confidence boost. I still do. Find your version of that.

I feel like I barely have the capacity to fold laundry right now

So don't. There is no Laundry Police. Especially don't fold (or wash for that matter) his.

Be gentle with yourself Shrug6645 and keep posting. You are in good hands here. Hands that will hold you up when you don't have the energy to hold yourself.