I cheated on my wife is there a chance I can ever get her back. I love her.

[amerikajin]

On 1/25/2022 at 4:50 PM, Italian Muse said:

 She works but is studying more than she works, so she needs my financial support.

If you're in the United States, a judge will see to it that she gets all the financial support from you that she needs. Believe it.

 

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I dont want to anger her more, or pressure her.

Good call.

 

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So I am trying to tread lightly here. How can I convince her to speak to me. I cant keep living without her and my son. I dont want her to keep seeing this other man. What can I do? I have been giving her time and space. I did come in heavy, demanding to see her, showing up at all times of night. I have laid back.

You have a need to control things, to control her. You need to take a good look at yourself here. You caused the situation with your narcissism and complete disregard for your family. And now you just want her to recover from her emotional injuries on your timetable. Look at yourself, man. Think about how narcissistic that is. 

 

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 I will financially support her, but I need us to work on our marriage.

Yeah, this comment is telling. "I need us to work on our marriage." Do you know what her needs are? Do you care?

 

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  I've never cheated on her before. I've always been open and honest with her.  I will do whatever it takes.

I don't believe this for a moment. Cheating involves a lot of deception - more than just the act of having sex in secret. 

 

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I need some advice. I need a fresh perspective.  I am overthinking because I'm overwhelmed. Thank You in advance. 

1. Think long and hard about why you did this. What are the reasons that you chose intimacy with your affair partner over intimacy with your wife.

2. Understand this: you don't matter anymore. If you want to repair the trust, you first have to accept that your self, your ego, your feelings...all of that is a lot less important. You have to be willing to give up your ego. This is going to be painful because you're going to have to accept her anger and resentment for a long time. If you love her truly and deeply, you will accept it. If you still love yourself more than you love her, you will resist, and the marriage - what's left of it - will die fairly quickly.

 

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by amerikajin

[amerikajin]

9 hours ago, Italian Muse said:

I mean she's a angel as in she's a great person.  She's not deserving of any of what I put her through. 

In honesty I had this affair because I am a idiot.  I had a damn near perfect wife.  We had communication, great sex. She was always supportive.  I was thinking with my dick. I wanted to have sex with this beautiful woman and I did.  I just kept doing it. 

I was a fool. 

You took her love for granted. You put your own desires for sexual excitement and personal affirmation over her needs to have a stable, loving partner. It's that simple. 

I'm actually not trying to judge you. I don't think you're a bad person. I don't think you as a whole person are defined by your failure as a husband, but I think it's important to be brutally honest with yourself and admit faults. You obviously have a lot of good qualities as a person - you probably chose your occupation because you enjoy helping others. Your wife probably saw a lot of good qualities in you. But we all have faults and we have a responsibility to find them and fix them.

It's probably been said already but find a therapist who can help you. Find an individual therapist for yourself so that you can understand why you did this and what your personal weaknesses are, and if the marriage is still salvageable, approach your wife about couple's counseling. 

[ASG]

Dude. You cheated on your wife, she kicked you out, asked ofr a divorce and is now making her own decisions. 

What this guy is doing at her place is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. It stopped being your business when you cheated on her with her best friend and got caught. 

Period. 

Let it go. She will do whatever she wants to and that is nothing to do with you, as per her wishes. She's done with you. 

You trying to interfere will only get you in legal trouble. 

[Taramere]

On 1/26/2022 at 8:34 PM, Italian Muse said:

I've said in previous comments I am willing to do ANYTHING  for her. I know. I sound pathetic.  I dont deserve sympathy.  I am just saying I will do whatever it takes 

Over the course of the 3 months you were cheating, did you contemplate the possibility of what would happen if/when you got caught?  If so, did you contemplate the possibility of the fallout being as extensive and hard to bear as it has been?

[Italian Muse]

3 minutes ago, Taramere said:

Over the course of the 3 months you were cheating, did you contemplate the possibility of what would happen if/when you got caught?  If so, did you contemplate the possibility of the fallout being as extensive and hard to bear as it has been?

I contemplated it every time I cheated. I would get nauseous sometimes after. I was depressed at the end.  Almost hoping to be "caught" because I couldn't confess something so terrible to my wife.

The other woman was telling me she loved me.  Demanding I stop having sex with my wife!! She even went as far as introducing my wife to this guy my wife is now hanging around with. I found out he wanted to sleep with her. So now I'm feeling resentment towards the other woman. I feel she set me up! Threatened to tell everyone about the affair,  she said she loved me.  I think her obsession with me, scared me.

I never suspected the fall would be this bad. I have so much regret. My heart is breaking.  I see how badly I hurt my wife. She's lost everything. Her family,  best friend and her health. She's extremely frail. I caused this. Her dizzy spells are back. I never thought I would cause this to happen.  I'm so ashamed and it feels like a death. 

[Italian Muse]

1 hour ago, heartwhole2 said:

I mean, yes, this is true. But why were you, an intelligent person who can do risk/reward analyses, a fool? We all have primal urges yet manage to remain within the bounds of civilized society. What kind of boundaries or lack thereof did you have with women you'd want to sleep with? What kind of coping skills do you have to deal with stress in healthy ways? How can you protect yourself against your areas of weakness?

You really need to get into counseling to gain these insights and become the best version of yourself you can be. You do this because you want to be healthy and whole and not someone who hurts those he loves most, not because it might get your wife back.

I'm not sure if you realize how entitled it comes across that you had a terrible affair (you haven't even mentioned how upsetting it must be for your wife to lose her best friend and her childcare along with everything else) and now you just can't accept that the marriage could be over. You can't just go around harming your spouse and changing the rules on her and then ignoring her wishes for how to move forward. It says, "I can hurt you however I want, make you lose your best friend, and traumatize you, but I should still get to have what I want . . . a marriage with you."

So again, it's not just that you thought with your d*ck one time and then got in over your head. You are showing an inability to control your impulses in your actions now too. That's certainly not reassuring to your wife.

I have had a inability to control my impulses. Especially with women. In the past. Before I fell for my wife. I didn't respect women. My wife is the first woman who has changed my mind. I  didn't push her for sex. I respected her too much. 

I thought I grew out of impulses of the past. I had not. I admit I talk myself into stupid s***. Like, for example. I saw my wife and baby. I was feeling some kind of way. I figured I could convince her to have sex with me.  Then she would forgive me.  I  snapped back to reality when I began touching her and she asked me to never touch her again. 

I am getting help. I know I have a lot of work to do.  I know that if the role was reversed.  I  would be in jail. I would have killed the guy. My blood boils thinking about anyone else touching my wife.  I know I have a long way to go. 

[vla1120]

9 minutes ago, Italian Muse said:

The other woman was telling me she loved me.  Demanding I stop having sex with my wife!! She even went as far as introducing my wife to this guy my wife is now hanging around with. I found out he wanted to sleep with her. So now I'm feeling resentment towards the other woman. I feel she set me up! Threatened to tell everyone about the affair,  she said she loved me.  I think her obsession with me, scared me.

This is what happens when you play with fire. The only resentment you should be feeling is toward yourself. While you say you take responsibility, you're still diverting blame in another direction - your wife's best friend was so beautiful, you could not resist (her fault, not yours), now you believe she set you up (again, playing the victim.) 

Nope. I'll believe you feel responsible for the pain you caused your wife when you stop deflecting. Have you started therapy to see why you can't keep it in your pants, and why you so easily betrayed your wife...in your home...with her best friend...for three months - and continued until you got caught? When you start working on your own problems, without trying to control the situation with your wife, that's when I will believe you have remorse.

[Italian Muse]

5 hours ago, Wiseman2 said:

That's basically it.

Ok. Get an attorney who thinks with the head on his shoulders. You'll need a good one.

 

 

I don't need a great Lawyer.  I will give her everything.  I have no intention to fight her for anything.  

[Taramere]

24 minutes ago, Italian Muse said:

I never suspected the fall would be this bad. I have so much regret. My heart is breaking.  I see how badly I hurt my wife. She's lost everything. Her family,  best friend and her health. She's extremely frail. I caused this. Her dizzy spells are back. I never thought I would cause this to happen.  I'm so ashamed and it feels like a death. 

The friend she lost was not a friend.  There are some big problems with laying too much of the blame for a situation at the feet of the Other Women.  Especially if/when it lets the man off the hook and/or prevents a couple from seriously examining problems in the relationship that are nothing to do with the Other Woman.  However...the betrayal by this person your wife classed as her best friend is shocking.  I find myself wondering how far back your wife and this friend went...because the further back they go, the bigger the impact of this betrayal on your wife.  And also, the further back her friendship with somebody as toxic as this woman sounds, the more harm that particular friendship has probably done to her over the years without her probably realising/seeing it.

I'm not suggesting for a minute that you raise any of that with your wife.  I'd hope it's something that may perhaps come up in her own counselling, because this woman very clearly did not have your wife's best interests at heart.  If she's betrayed her in as terrible a way as this, and if the two of them go way back, then the likelihood is that there have been other betrayals.  

I do think, as others have said (and as I implied in a previous post) that some of your behaviour - for instance the oubreak of rage & jealousy regarding the man your wife dated - sounds narcissistic.  Realistically, however, we're all on a continuum between being 0 (perfectly well adjusted human, which nobody is) and 10 being the sort of meltdown of a human being who would probably be on death row in jurisdictions which have such a thing.  Massively stressful life circumstances can push people along that continuum to a point where they go from being imperfect but reasonably well functioning to finding themselves in a bad place that there seems no way out of.  Which both you and your wife are most probably in right now.

When that happens it's absolutely horrible of course, but it can also be the beginning of learning things about yourself that you either didn't know about or didn't face in the past.  Which is partly what counselling is about.  Helping you to face up to these aspects of you that come as an unpleasant revelation, and learning to develop techniques for managing them in order to recognise when those aspects of you are being triggered by certain situations, and threatening to push you into making more bad choices that would hurt you and the people you love.  You can't just fix all that by having the carrot of what you want (in this case, your wife being willing to try again with you) dangled in front of you.  It's not an easy task.  Even as doctors who may well have a far greater understanding of psychology and the human condition than the average person, both you and your wife need your own, separate counsellors to help you make sense of what has happened, to learn healthy strategies for getting yourselves through it...and to also learn what parts of your thinking or character may have contributed to you making poor choices.  

Your wife needs space - free of you pressurising her to allow you back into her life when she has no reason to believe that you've made the necessary improvements to yourself to prevent something like this from happening again.  However, if the two of you are in touch, I'd see no harm in letting her know that you are seeking counselling to help you understand why you sabotaged things in this way and to develop far better coping mechanisms to prevent you sabotaging your own happiness (and the happiness of others you love) in the future.  But if you follow that up with more pressure on your wife to let you make it up to her/let you back into her life then you're not doing her any favours.  You need counselling because you need counselling - and not because it'll necessarily save your marriage.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Taramere

[vla1120]

3 minutes ago, Italian Muse said:

I have had a inability to control my impulses. Especially with women. In the past. Before I fell for my wife. I didn't respect women. My wife is the first woman who has changed my mind. I  didn't push her for sex. I respected her too much. 

I thought I grew out of impulses of the past. I had not. I admit I talk myself into stupid s***. Like, for example. I saw my wife and baby. I was feeling some kind of way. I figured I could convince her to have sex with me.  Then she would forgive me.  I  snapped back to reality when I began touching her and she asked me to never touch her again. 

I am getting help. I know I have a lot of work to do.  I know that if the role was reversed.  I  would be in jail. I would have killed the guy. My blood boils thinking about anyone else touching my wife.  I know I have a long way to go. 

Ugh. You still don't respect women. I'm glad you are getting help. You should also talk to your therapist about your disrespect of women. Instead of respect your wife's feelings, you tried to convince her to have sex with you. You began touching her without her consent. You have a LOT of work to do. 

I don't remember whether you indicated whether your baby is a girl or a boy. If you have a daughter, just imagine her coming up against a boy/man with your mentality. Maybe that will help put things in perspective for you.

Yes. You do have a long way to go. Let her go. Work on yourself - not just the impulse control, but also your view of women and taking responsibility for your actions without placing blame on anyone else. Leave your wife alone unless it has to do with your co-parenting your child. Even then, just try to be a good co-parent without exerting any pressure or trying to influence your wife about your relationship.

[Lotsgoingon]

Absolutely you need to get to counseling asap. A really good one.

You're stil describing your wife as an angel and you indicate you didn't pursue sex with her because you "respected" her. 

Sounds like you might have some Madonna-Whore splitting going on. Google Madonna Whore Complex. It's dividing women into good girls (cute, hnest, nice, motherly--and asexual) ... and whores (sexy, powerful but not necessariy "nice" or maternal).

That whole complex has been this confining box that women have been fighting as part of equality. (No such role split going on with men. Guys can be dogs and great dads.)

But the Madonna-Whore thing has also jammed up many a man.  Sounds like you put your wife in the Madonna category. The friend/affair partner was in the whore category--calculating, demanding. And now you're feeling guilty because you betrayed an angel. No, you betrayed someone that you were deeply committed to--that's enough. Making wife an angel doesn't get you anywhere. Regular, flawed spouses deserve loyalty to. 

What happens is you undermine your desire and lust for your wife--by putting her in your angel category. 

 

 

 

[Italian Muse]

6 hours ago, Lotsgoingon said:

Absolutely you need to get to counseling asap. A really good one.

You're stil describing your wife as an angel and you indicate you didn't pursue sex with her because you "respected" her. 

Sounds like you might have some Madonna-Whore splitting going on. Google Madonna Whore Complex. It's dividing women into good girls (cute, hnest, nice, motherly--and asexual) ... and whores (sexy, powerful but not necessariy "nice" or maternal).

That whole complex has been this confining box that women have been fighting as part of equality. (No such role split going on with men. Guys can be dogs and great dads.)

But the Madonna-Whore thing has also jammed up many a man.  Sounds like you put your wife in the Madonna category. The friend/affair partner was in the whore category--calculating, demanding. And now you're feeling guilty because you betrayed an angel. No, you betrayed someone that you were deeply committed to--that's enough. Making wife an angel doesn't get you anywhere. Regular, flawed spouses deserve loyalty to. 

What happens is you undermine your desire and lust for your wife--by putting her in your angel category. 

 

 

 

I understand what your saying. I meant I didnt have sex with my wife, while we dating until she was ready. I really grew to respect her. The way she carries herself I never had a woman that way. 

Most were very needy and didnt have much self respect.  My wife showed me how to respect women. Before I was a Dog I admit. She made me want to be good for her. 

My wide definitely has flaws. I call her an angel because others do. She always puts others first. She's very kind and always sees the best in others and treats everyone with respect.  

Even now with what I have done, she hasn't belittled me. She hasn't called me names. [ ] 

I hate myself because I have always been proud of the fact that I was a good husband. I treated her with the respect she deserved.  And if she bragged about how lucky she was to have me. I felt pride in that. 

Now. I  ruined everything. I think she's having sex with a man she hardly knows now. I'm sure out of her hurt and not thinking through her actions. 

Her friend. My affair partner is the one who introduced them. She pulled that  because I refused to leave my wife, I was on the verge of breaking it off. So she made some terrible moves. So yes. I  have very little respect for her. Because of that. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
language, violence

[Estes]

9 minutes ago, Italian Muse said:

My affair partner is the one who introduced them. She pulled that s*** because I refused to leave my wife, I was on the verge of breaking it off. So she made some terrible moves. So yes. I  have very little respect for her. Because of that. 

Nobody forced you to do anything.

In every post you talk about yourself and how this has affected you. Here and there you throw in something about how affected SHE was- noticeably it's written AFTER the part about you.

Your lack of accountability and continued selfishness is astounding.

[heartwhole2]

1 hour ago, Italian Muse said:

I contemplated it every time I cheated. I would get nauseous sometimes after. I was depressed at the end.  Almost hoping to be "caught" because I couldn't confess something so terrible to my wife.

The other woman was telling me she loved me.  Demanding I stop having sex with my wife!! She even went as far as introducing my wife to this guy my wife is now hanging around with. I found out he wanted to sleep with her. So now I'm feeling resentment towards the other woman. I feel she set me up! Threatened to tell everyone about the affair,  she said she loved me.  I think her obsession with me, scared me.

I never suspected the fall would be this bad. I have so much regret. My heart is breaking.  I see how badly I hurt my wife. She's lost everything. Her family,  best friend and her health. She's extremely frail. I caused this. Her dizzy spells are back. I never thought I would cause this to happen.  I'm so ashamed and it feels like a death. 

Whoo boy. OK, so the person you were betraying your wife with behind her back turned out not to . . . follow some imaginary rules about how to be a nice and respectful cheater? Do you think on the spectrum of human qualities, the minority who cheat tend to be on the more kind, selfless, self-aware, humble, honest, and giving side of the equation, or the less kind etc. side?

Now interestingly, I've seen many MM at your stage in the process blame their wives for the affair. Mine did. But you are reserving all of that for the OW, the person who made no vows to you. So she turned out to be just as bad at being a friend as you are at being a husband. This doesn't mean you can blame her. Shouldn't you have thought, hmmmm, this seems like a bad idea. She must have an issue with self-worth if she's throwing herself at me. She can't be trusted if she would stab her best friend in the back and mess up our childcare situation. This will end badly.

Her "obsession" with you scared you . . . what exactly are you doing to your wife? Yes, OW is surely a hot mess express, but she's irrelevant now. My husband tried to claim that the OW "seduced him with sweetness." Um yeah, it's super sweet to ask someone to throw away his marriage for some sex on the side. What a sweetheart! What he meant was that he wasn't aware of his own issues with self-esteem, and that he couldn't believe someone would want him so much.

It is like a death. The future you both thought you would have is shattered now. Even if she gives you another chance, believe me that things will never be the same. Life can and will still be beautiful and poignant and you will have many things to be grateful for, but that simple trust and ability to take the strength of your marriage for granted will never be the same. Or, more likely, you are headed for divorce, and your futures will be with different partners. That wasn't what you envisioned when you brought a child into this world. Again, your counseling is a good place for processing this grief. Certainly the denial stage has not done you any favors.

[Italian Muse]

Just now, Estes said:

Nobody forced you to do anything.

In every post you talk about yourself and how this has affected you. Here and there you throw in something about how affected SHE was- noticeably it's written AFTER the part about you.

Your lack of accountability and continued selfishness is astounding.

I've taken accountability from the start. All I have done is tell how I take full responsibility and blame. Read all my post. I acknowledge everything about what my actions have done to her. 

I think you started reading my UPDATE post. Not the original.  Because the reason I posted anything because I was seeking advice on how I can make her better from the pain I caused.

[heartwhole2]

2 minutes ago, Italian Muse said:

I've taken accountability from the start. All I have done is tell how I take full responsibility and blame. Read all my post. I acknowledge everything about what my actions have done to her. 

I think you started reading my UPDATE post. Not the original.  Because the reason I posted anything because I was seeking advice on how I can make her better from the pain I caused.

This reply isn't to me, but what we're trying to point out is that your posts are myopic. You can tell what a person is prioritizing by what they mention most often, most forcefully, etc. You say your concern is for your wife, but you have resisted everything she has asked of you. You even implied that you thought your financial situation gave you some right to expect reconciliation.

Read How To Help Your Spouse Heal from an Affair by Linda J. MacDonald. You can buy it on Amazon.

[vla1120]

5 minutes ago, Italian Muse said:

because I was seeking advice on how I can make her better from the pain I caused.

Distance yourself from her. Leave her alone and respect her boundaries. The only contact you should be having with her now is for co-parenting your child. Period. 

[Lotsgoingon]

Dude, google therapists in your area right now. Pick up the phone and schedule an appointment with someone.  Schedule with several people. Tell them you want to meet and see what they can do. Keep scheduling until you find someone who gets you, who feels great to visit and who is smart as ##%t. 

Right now you are in massive, massive pain, with guit, anguish, self-rejection, self-loathing, you probably feel stupid, hopeless, you blew up your life.  It's  impossible to think clearly when we're in massive pain. Can't be done. Brain is spending all its energy coping with the pain. You need someone to guide your thinking and healing. 

Google and pick up the phone and call some counselors. Today. In the next hour. Do you have money for that?

Feeling horrible can itself be a distraction if it's not tied to constructive action. We feel "good" about ourselves that we are feeling so bad and guilty. But that doesn't get you anywhere. Take some action. Sharing here is  ndeed action. Now go the next step. Do you know anyone who has been to therapy or counseling? If so, you can call them for recommendation. Otherwise google and just set something up. You can always change later.

 

[Italian Muse]

5 minutes ago, heartwhole2 said:

Whoo boy. OK, so the person you were betraying your wife with behind her back turned out not to . . . follow some imaginary rules about how to be a nice and respectful cheater? Do you think on the spectrum of human qualities, the minority who cheat tend to be on the more kind, selfless, self-aware, humble, honest, and giving side of the equation, or the less kind etc. side?

Now interestingly, I've seen many MM at your stage in the process blame their wives for the affair. Mine did. But you are reserving all of that for the OW, the person who made no vows to you. So she turned out to be just as bad at being a friend as you are at being a husband. This doesn't mean you can blame her. Shouldn't you have thought, hmmmm, this seems like a bad idea. She must have an issue with self-worth if she's throwing herself at me. She can't be trusted if she would stab her best friend in the back and mess up our childcare situation. This will end badly.

Her "obsession" with you scared you . . . what exactly are you doing to your wife? Yes, OW is surely a hot mess express, but she's irrelevant now. My husband tried to claim that the OW "seduced him with sweetness." Um yeah, it's super sweet to ask someone to throw away his marriage for some sex on the side. What a sweetheart! What he meant was that he wasn't aware of his own issues with self-esteem, and that he couldn't believe someone would want him so much.

It is like a death. The future you both thought you would have is shattered now. Even if she gives you another chance, believe me that things will never be the same. Life can and will still be beautiful and poignant and you will have many things to be grateful for, but that simple trust and ability to take the strength of your marriage for granted will never be the same. Or, more likely, you are headed for divorce, and your futures will be with different partners. That wasn't what you envisioned when you brought a child into this world. Again, your counseling is a good place for processing this grief. Certainly the denial stage has not done you any favors.

I do not blame anyone but myself.  I could have prevented this. I certainly do not blame my wife. She is completely innocent here. 

My life will never be the same. I know that I will NEVER remarry after this woman. My wife despite my action is the love of my life. I cant replace her. I know I would always be in love with her,  so pretending to love someone else would be living a lie. My focus is my son. My patients my family. I know I have single handedly destroyed my life.

[Italian Muse]

5 hours ago, Lotsgoingon said:

Dude, google therapists in your area right now. Pick up the phone and schedule an appointment with someone.  Schedule with several people. Tell them you want to meet and see what they can do. Keep scheduling until you find someone who gets you, who feels great to visit and who is smart as ##%t. 

Right now you are in massive, massive pain, with guit, anguish, self-rejection, self-loathing, you probably feel stupid, hopeless, you blew up your life.  It's  impossible to think clearly when we're in massive pain. Can't be done. Brain is spending all its energy coping with the pain. You need someone to guide your thinking and healing. 

Google and pick up the phone and call some counselors. Today. In the next hour. Do you have money for that?

Feeling horrible can itself be a distraction if it's not tied to constructive action. We feel "good" about ourselves that we are feeling so bad and guilty. But that doesn't get you anywhere. Take some action. Sharing here is  ndeed action. Now go the next step. Do you know anyone who has been to therapy or counseling? If so, you can call them for recommendation. Otherwise google and just set something up. You can always change later.

 

I am seeing someone.  But counseling has never helped me. NOTHING is going to take the pain away from the woman I love. 

I will never feel ok after what I did to her. I betrayed her in the worst way, I disappointed her and let her down. I will never get over it. 

Our son is going to be affected as well. I cant believe I allowed this to happen. I am seeing a lot of the physical effects my terrible choices have caused. 

I deserve to be depressed.  My wife was in the ER because she's unable to keep food down. Having dizzy spells and has topped going to school because she has no child care and she cant focus.  

There's nothing a counseling session can do to fix this. If my wife ends up doing self harm I would be done for. I would never be able to live with myself.  

Edited January 28, 2022 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
language

[Italian Muse]

25 minutes ago, Estes said:

Nobody forced you to do anything.

In every post you talk about yourself and how this has affected you. Here and there you throw in something about how affected SHE was- noticeably it's written AFTER the part about you.

Your lack of accountability and continued selfishness is astounding.

I have done nothing but take responsibility.  Review my post 

[stillafool]

Look, you need to calm down and get control of your emotions before you mess up more than just your marriage.  Have you thought about if you lose control and do something stupid you could also lose your career and then where would you be.   Yes it hurts when the one you cheated on is done with you and moves on to someone else.  Break ups hurt like death as that is what it is the death of your relationship.  Do you have friends IRL that you can spend time with and get support from?  It's best to not spend too much time idle or alone until you can get over the hump of this hurt.  Maybe if you have time off go on a small vacation to get your head together.  You've got to do something constructive for yourself before you end up doing something stupid.  Stop driving pass her house.

Edited January 28, 2022 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
removed quote containing language

[Lotsgoingon]

If counseling isn't helping, then you have a terrible counselor and don't have a bond.

Get to a different counselor.  Dude, you gonna have to be active and action-oriented here. You can't do the passive thing "i'm not getting much out of it." Well if you said that about an auto mechanic, you'd go to another mechanic. 

Get to a different therapist. You are incapable of sorting this out on your own. Incapable. Can't do it alone. 

[vla1120]

41 minutes ago, Italian Muse said:

I am seeing someone.  But counseling has never helped me.

How many times have you tried therapy? You're either seeing the wrong therapist or you're not really putting in the work required to make the changes you need to make, or you're closed off to changing the things about yourself that lead to this predicament.

[Italian Muse]

2 minutes ago, vla1120 said:

How many times have you tried therapy? You're either seeing the wrong therapist or you're not really putting in the work required to make the changes you need to make, or you're closed off to changing the things about yourself that lead to this predicament.

I have been working with a counselor.  I feel like I need to help my wife heal. I need to fix the damage I caused,  then I can fix myself.  I need to put her first.