Working things out, but struggling

[how2forgive&2forget]

I browsed through the other forums but I think this place is more appropriate for my situation.

 

I am not married to my SO but it is a very long-term relationship. We are in our late 20s.

 

He cheated on me with a much younger girl. This happened a year ago but the pain is still fresh to me.

 

He has gone NC with her, came back to me and wooed me for 3 months until I gave in and decided to give him a second chance.

 

But it is so hard to forgive and forget. I break up with him every 3 days. He cries and begs for me. And I take him back.

 

I have so much anger inside me and I want to get over it.

 

I decided it was worth the try because he tried to show me how important I am to his life. His actions, his words, his promises are all very convincing.

 

We have had happy days when everything is perfect, then I'd deliberately ruin it by throwing the affair to his face.

 

I'd play sad songs to make him remember of the pain he caused me.

 

I'd deliberately not answer the phone for hours.

 

I'd sometimes feel repulsed when he hugs me so I always end up on the very edge of the bed, far out of his reach.

 

He has begged me to try to forgive and forget, and focus on the good things.

To think of the present and the future, not the past.

 

But why is it so hard to do that? I truly love this guy. When he left me I thought my world ended. When he came back, I thought everything will be back to normal.

 

To the BSs who stayed with their WS, what steps did you take to get rid of the anger? How did you stop yourself bringing up the past? How did you move forward with your marriage?

 

I really, really just want to give me and my SO another chance.

[RedDevil66]

There are really no ways to get over it, but you can get through it.

 

Couples therapy is really the most effective way. You will never get to the root of the issues unless there is a professional who helps him work on WHY he strayed.

 

You know, being as young as you are and being in a long term relationship that started young is tough because people change SO much from their 20's to their 30's etc.

I'm sure your BF is really regretful, but now you need to figure out if he's going to do it again.

 

Resentment kills everything. It leads to the death of any hope

[how2forgive&2forget]

Thanks for taking the time to reply RedDevil.

 

It is unfixable. I caught him cheating again today. He has an account at this dating website, messaging many Latinas. I guess his type. He cheated on me with a young Latina. It seems he's still searching for her.

 

But this is my closure. All hopes are killed. I feel better in a weird way knowing that is indeed over.

[freestyle]

I'm so,so , sorry you went through this.

 

I was formulating a response to your first post..............

 

....then I read your second post. Wow.What. a. Snake.

 

(((((((hugs)))))))

 

I'd still like to say what I originally intended.

 

Your behavior after discovering the first instance of cheating was completely normal. An understandable reaction. I've heard it said that the pain of betrayal by someone you love feels like a mortal wound.

 

It's not something that can be shrugged off. And typically, it takes a few

years to recover, and rebuild trust.

 

I wish you my best.....keep posting here if you need to, it may be helpful to you.

[HeyThere]

But it is so hard to forgive and forget. I break up with him every 3 days. He cries and begs for me. And I take him back.

 

I have so much anger inside me and I want to get over it.

 

Sorry to hear the story. After the pain subsides, you’ll feel much better about the closure and that the rollercoaster ride is gone.

 

Forgiveness and forgetting should not be thought of together. One should never forget the pain brought on by another; if that happens, the likelihood of repetition is great. Now forgiveness, that’s a whole subject to be explored.

 

Best of everything.

[how2forgive&2forget]

Thank you for reading and replying.

 

I am honestly okay. Not devastated like I was before when he first cheated.

 

Some tears, a lot of sadness, but I am glad to know that there's nothing left. That knowledge makes me sad too, for some reason. Confusing.

 

I have extended my hand in friendship. He really was a good friend to me. It's just that his idea of a relationship is the open kind. I know people who have open relationships/open marriages and it really does work for them....but I know it's not for me.

 

I know NC is the best way to go but as long as we refrain from sharing our dating lives to each other, we'll be okay. We've been through a lot to lose each other like this.

[on1wheel]

Why would you want to be friends with an A-hole that cheated on you @ least twice? A friendship is still a relationship; just not a sexual one. He DOES NOT care about your feelings & it will not work.

Anyway, I am soooo sorry for what happened to you. There is a reason that there is an old addage "once a cheater, always a cheater". Cheaters are selfish & always will be. I am just glad he did it so soon afterwards, so that you didn't waste your whole life with this loser.

As for your innitial question about "getting past betrayal", I don't believe you ever really do if you were in-love with the person. That is because what you feel is so horrible that you never get over it.

It has been 2 yrs since I caught my W in her PA with a co-worker & I still suffer daily when I am reminded of it.

If you had tried to get past it you would have had to say "I love them enough to try & get past it & I accept the blame if they do it again, as I could have left to make sure it never happened again".

But you can't get past it if you constantly bring it up. Discussions would be necessary for years to come in order to try & re-build the trust as much as possible, but throwing it in their face if they are trying to make it up to you is counter-productive.

I wish you well & hope you meet someone more like you. Cut that other guy loose totally & you will be happier for it. Seeing him with his new latina gf will just be too hard.

[Simon Attwood]

He has begged me to try to forgive and forget, and focus on the good things.

To think of the present and the future, not the past.

 

But why is it so hard to do that? I truly love this guy. When he left me I thought my world ended. When he came back, I thought everything will be back to normal.

 

What is consciousness? A lot of current theory and research suggest that conscious will is an illusion, a narrative played out like a movie on an unconscious projector upon the projection screen of our consciousness.

 

I am not sure i entirely go along with that theory as there is plenty of evidence to suggest that we can train our conscious mind to be far more responsible through things like Buddhist forms of meditation and cognitive therapy.

 

What has this got to do with your plight? Well, I suggest that, although you consciously proclaim that you want to forgive and forget, your unconscious mind seems to want to sabotage any form of reconciliation and forgiveness.

 

This displays quite how much influence our unconscious drives our motives for our words and behaviours. Why does it have this ability to control us? Well, because it is unconscious, because we are not aware of it or it's motives. Our unconscious is deeply rooted in our primitive beginnings. It's motives, desires and drives are instinctual and autonomous. It's thought processes are limited, it does not calculate or consider carefully, it's impulses are based upon either learned or inherited patterns.

 

The only way to begin to take control of them, is to become conscious of them; to accept the unconscious.

 

You can forget, forgetting, that cannot and will not happen.

 

Forgiveness is possible, but to forgive, you have to acknowledge the weakness that you are to forgive in another, as also potentially in yourself, just as it is potential in all of us.

 

Find that weakness in yourself and acknowledge it, and in that acknowledgement you will find forgiveness. With that forgiveness you will be able to move forward.

[how2forgive&2forget]

Why would you want to be friends with an A-hole that cheated on you @ least twice? A friendship is still a relationship; just not a sexual one. He DOES NOT care about your feelings & it will not work.

 

Oh at this point I am not in love with him anymore. I just love him and care for him with zero expextations lol! I guess in time

even this love will eventually fade away and we'll separate paths but I'm his longest relationship and he's my longest relationship. We've been through a lot and us breaking up as lovers doesn't mean we cannot interact as friends. Yes he's an a-hole as a bf but as a friend he is actually very good.

 

Anyway, I am soooo sorry for what happened to you. There is a reason that there is an old addage "once a cheater, always a cheater". Cheaters are selfish & always will be. I am just glad he did it so soon afterwards, so that you didn't waste your whole life with this loser.

 

true i'm glad he did not wait too long. Hmm he might even have set his computer up so i will find his account on a dating website so that i would dump him. Who knows? But yes it is better off this way.

 

As for your innitial question about "getting past betrayal", I don't believe you ever really do if you were in-love with the person. That is because what you feel is so horrible that you never get over it.

It has been 2 yrs since I caught my W in her PA with a co-worker & I still suffer daily when I am reminded of it.

 

i am so very sorry. I agree with you, the first betrayal still

stings to this day (the recent one did not bother me as much). It had sent me to a spiralling depression. I'm hoping for both of us that time will dull the pain.

 

Also, i no longer depend on anybody else for my happiness. For the longest time he supplied it and when he left i was a wreck.

 

How long have you been married? In my case letting him go eased my burden quite a bit. But then he and i were not financially entangled and we have no kids.

 

If you had tried to get past it you would have had to say "I love them enough to try & get past it & I accept the blame if they do it again, as I could have left to make sure it never happened again".

But you can't get past it if you constantly bring it up. Discussions would be necessary for years to come in order to try & re-build the trust as much as possible, but throwing it in their face if they are trying to make it up to you is counter-productive.

 

i guess in a way i sabotaged the reconciliation by constantly bringing it up. I wanted to hurt him by mentioning the other girl's name any chance i get.

 

Tbh i thouht it was silly to try the second time. So deep inside i never really wanted it to work. I just didn't see him as a good partner anymore.

 

 

I wish you well & hope you meet someone more like you. Cut that other guy loose totally & you will be happier for it. Seeing him with his new latina gf will just be too hard.

 

i have no problem dating again and i'm actually excited about it. He has hurt me too much already and i doubt seeing him with another girl will rip me to shreds again. I've experienced far greater hurt. I'll be okay with it.

 

Thank you and good luck to you too! I hope that the suffering will ease in time. Maybe you have to take the focus off your wife

and start doing things that make YOU happy.