Not Sure

[alebl41]

My fiancee and I have been together for 7 years and have been engaged for 4. We are only 25. Everyone comments that we are a beautiful couple and go great together. I cheated on my fiancee back in 2011 with an old high school crush and decided to come clean to him a couple of weeks ago, when I recently found out that he was seeing another woman for about a year.

 

When I cheated on my fiancee, I was at such a dark place in my life. I felt like I had failed myself in life after college and wouldn't talk to anyone. I wasn't entirely sure where we as a couple were headed in the future and panicked. Felt like I was going through a mid life crisis at 22. We had both been each other only sexual experiences. I was curious, and more so about

my high school crush. I talked to him on and off from the time my fiancee and I got together. He knew about the crush before we started actually dated and how I had felt about him then. We would talk about him and the girl that my fiancee was with at the time. I dealt with my fiancee talking to many other woman (so called old friends and some exes) online and on the phone throughout the first few years of our relationship. I would complain about it constantly and he just wouldn't stop. So I started keeping contact with the crush because I wanted to get back at my fiancee for what he was doing to me. I got caught up. I didn't really have any feelings for this guy anymore, but he seemed sincere in telling me how beautiful I was and how he made a mistake letting me walk away in high school. I ate it all up. He was playing me for a fool and I fell for it. Felt good to get the attention.

 

The last two years have been extremely difficult for us. We lost interest in each other, mentally and sexually. Mostly because I wouldn't talk about what was wrong with me, was rather boring and set in my ways, and both of us gained alot of weight. My fiancee would go out of his way to make

conversation and I just wasn't interested. I was like that with my family too. Just pushed everyone away. I pretty much hated myself and told negative things to myself constantly before and after the cheating. I don't know how I got that low. Many different things in my life affected me and I had a hard time letting go. Kept telling myself how worthless I was. I only slept with the guy once but we continued to see one another when he would come home from the military. I had stopped talking to him and started ignoring him since January 2013.

 

Now that everything is out in the open, we are trying to reconstruct our relationship. We've both cut out contacts with the other people. I know how hard it is for my fiancee having to deal with his woman stepping out on him.

I see it everyday. Was beaten down with words about what he felt about me. He says that he doesn't believe in love anymore. But that he really cares about me but isn't in love with me anymore. He says he doesn't have any emotion. He is willing for us to work things out, as long as we change. I see him struggle with it every day. All his doubts about if we will make it or not.

Even though he was seeing another girl for some time (and recently told me that there was another girl that he was messing with before that),

I still feel like what I did was worse. I really cheated on him. It was bad. Completely disgraced and disrespected myself with how it was done.

I feel like our relationship was just so bad at that point that we went outside to find comfort instead of with each other. The feel from cheating was addicting. It was this secret that I was addicted to.

 

This was the first time I have ever cheated on anyone. I couldn't believe it myself that I did that. I felt so guilty after but I couldn't go on without telling him. I love my fiancee. I can't believe that I strayed. Every time I would talk

to that guy, I knew it was wrong. Told myself to stop so many times. But I couldn't. The addicted and curiosity got a hold of me. All because I was unhappy with us for a time and myself for even longer and was too stubborn to talk to him about it.

 

My in-laws are extremely upset with me. More so his mother. Completely dumbfounded everyone. She held me at such high regard and was so proud to call me her daughter-in-law and I let her down. I have no clue how to fix this with her. My fiancee still brings things up. Wanting to know details and comparisons constantly. We still live together so its really hard. I felt so weak back then, but I no longer want to feel that way. I want to be my fiancee's strong woman, but I don't know how. I grew up in a single parent home and never saw my mother or any other couple really love one another. I know I have a lot of changing and growing up to do. I don't want to give up on us. I know with work and effort we can get through this and become a stronger couple. The couple that we always wanted to be.

 

He keeps saying that I was his queen. The only girl that made him believe in marriage. He thought so highly of me. It's always a constant comment from him that a strong woman would have never done that. I wasn't a woman back then. Didn't really know how to be. Didn't know how to take care of my man. I was very childish at that point. How do I humble myself and prove myself to him and his family? I lost all respect from them. How do I get that back? Especially with my mother-in-law? How do I get passed this and become a strong woman?

[BetrayedH]

Your mistakes do not need to define who you are. You made a mistake, a doozy of a mistake. But how you respond to it is far more critical than the fact that you made it. Your actions now and in the future are more critical than the mistakes of your past. You can redefine yourself by making one right decision after another and keeping it up.

 

I only have a couple minutes so I'm just going to list some resources:

 

(1) Read the thread pinned at the top of this forum, Things Every WS Needs to Know

(2) Get two books: Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass and How to Help My Spouse Heal from My Affair by Linda McDonald. The first one is like the Infidelity Bible. The second is a quick and simple read (so read it first).

(3) Go to survivinginfidelity.com, go to the "I Can Relate Forum," and find the thread for "Madhatters." Couples where both partners have committed adultery can reconcile but it's exponentially more difficult.

 

As well, keep reading and posting here.

 

Good luck.

[BetrayedH]

You mentioned a couple of times in your OP about your fiancée being with other women but then you say what you did was worse because you really cheated. I take it you mean that your fiancée didn't actually have physical relations with the women he was hanging out with. Is that correct?

 

Okay so it sounds like he was emotionally cheating on you while you cheated on him both emotionally and sexually. To a guy, physically cheating is the worst. They often don't even understand the concept of emotional cheating but when their SO actually has intercourse with another man it can become almost impossible for them to fully get over it.

 

You say that he is still bringing it up, but you only told him about it a couple of weeks ago. You don't really expect him to be over it in just a couple of weeks do you? Recovery takes a lot longer than a couple of weeks. He might be bringing this up for a couple of years. Are you up for that?

 

He may never really recover. There have been betrayed men on these boards who initially wanted to forgive and reconcile but found that their negative feelings towards their wandering spouse only got worse and stronger over time. You should be prepared for this. Your relationship may end up being broken for good. Continue to work on being a more mature better person. Do it for yourself, not just for the sake of saving this relationship which might not be salvageable. He is going be on a rollercoaster of emotions for quite some time and that's understandable, but if he becomes abusive don't put up with it.

 

Don't worry about his mother right now. Just focus on your fiancée and your relationship for the moment. You might be able to have a heart to heart with your future MIL later on but I don't think now is the time. For one thing she will be suspicious and skeptical about anything you have say. She doesn't see you as trustworthy right now and there is nothing you can say to change that. You have to let your actions talk louder than your words. If she sees you really maturing and changing over the course of the next many months or next couple of years she will be more open to you.

 

Good luck to you. You are very young and I believe that you can turn this around and still have a promising future for yourself and with a partner. Might not be this guy but that doesn't mean life is over.

 

This was a great post. Contemporary wisdom on recovering from infidelity say it takes about 2-5 years and it's a rollercoaster. You need to buckle in for the long term.

 

I would also caution you about wallowing in your own shame too much. Your H needs confidence that you can do some heavy lifting for a while. He needs some strength from you so focus more on being there for him and for the future rather than your guilt (as much as you can).

 

As well, I would caution you not to discount his cheating as being somehow less important than yours. While men are most disturbed by a physical affair, women typically are more disturbed by their man having an emotional connection with another woman. You have also been betrayed. He must also be transparent, re-earn trust, and take all of the steps of having been wayward. This is what makes it so tough when both have cheated. You must do a tremendous amount of work and you have to do it for someone that you don't trust. And he must do the same. They don't cancel each other out or make you even and focusing on one person being "worse" than the other is a recipe for disaster. Address them both and treat them as separate.