I didn't post this question to get advice on my situation; that's why I posted my own thread and am taking steps to heal from infidelity.
For almost 2 months after I found out about the affiar, I thought and thought that maybe I could make peace with it and we go to counseling and save our family. But when I am deeply honest with myself, I know that cheating is a dealbreaker. I don't get why there's the assumption that I can't forgive my husband for his affair. That's why I'm in counseling, to help forgive what happened. But forgiveness is not the same as reconcilliation.
What I was I wanted to know was other people's opinions, if they felt the same way or didn't. This is a general thread, not a specific one. The reason I'm asking is bc I see so much advice to other people who are suffering in their marriages, that I wonder if the advice being given here is CONTRIBUTING not SOLVING relationship problems.
Let me ask again and I hope that it makes more sense.
When you act contrary to your natural emotions, such as telling your cheating spouse that you are NOT hurting or want them back, when you lie about how busy your weekend was even if you sat at home with you and the kitties, you're just lying as surely as that other person they had the affair with was "just a friend."
For example, my stbx and I were friends with a couple who later got a divorce. The wife cheated and left, and he wanted her back. I don't know if he came to this site or others, but on more than one occasion, he asked us to tell his wife that we went to a concert together when really he stayed at home being depressed. It happened several times. We both asked him why and he said that he wanted his wife to think he wasn't as pathetic as he was, staying at home numbing himself through video games and booze.
It was years later that she told us that she knew he was lying about "Getting a life" and that it was one of the reasons that drove her away. If he had been honest, she might have still never come back, but she has so much less respect for him since he couldn't just be honest.
But I'm not interested in my own story. I'm asking bc it is so heartbreaking to see people lie about their relationships. It's like the lying from the cheating spouse is the norm, and infects the spouse with a dose of lies too.
That is, to me it seems that if people follow some of the advice of masking their feelings, that even their spouse all of sudden came back, the spouse would have a misconception of the pain. It's like a lie you can never escape.
