How do you "forgive" an affair?

When I was in my mid twenties I met a man and married him in 1978. He told me he worked for C@P telephone in Washington dc close to where I lived. We lived in my place for a year and moved to a townhouse after that year. He never came fully clean or open with me about his job so I started snooping.

I figured out he was an agent for the Secret Service attached to White House Communications. He worked his way up and became a sniper for the agency going out of town for 2 weeks at a time. He had a badge and was undercover in street clothes.

There were agents (2) in a car that sat outside our house frequently just watching. This went on for the full time we were married, 30 yrs and is still happening now to us both even tho we live over 1000 miles apart and have been divorced 10 yrs.

There is a whole book behind this guy that I could write. We stopped sleeping together after 3 yrs of marriage but the rest if the 27 yrs we lived together on good terms and did things together like any other couple.

I knew he was cheating. I never did. There were lots of triggers that tipped me off to it. Staying married meant I could do all the volunteer work I wanted and live the life I'd dreamed of as a kid. I also studied all the time, earning 3 degrees, all in human and animal medicine.

He made it possibe for me to do what I needed to do for my life and I became the wife he needed to make him stable in te eyes of the public and the agency. It worked out.

Today I am content and very pleased with my life of service. There is no other way to put it. I know it seems kinda wierd but it worked. He remarried after our divorce and I am happy for him.
 

Brookswood said:
Hmmm…. That depends. It’s easy to say, but had my ex made the decision stay with our marriage, be completely visible to all me on everything she does and who she does it with, and work with me and our counselor to establish a new better marriage, I think I would have gone along with saving the marriage.

I know of a fellow whose wife flew the coop for another man, returned when she missed her children, and then, shortly after her return found out she was pregnant by the other man. Amazingly, they made it work. But, the OM had to be 100% cut out or her life. Period. No exceptions.
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I can understand why but, what about the child which would not have had any contact with its biological father?
 
If someone lies to me then I'd never trust them again so, I can't imagine forgiving an affair. I did once have a boyfriend who cheated although he always denied it. It was the lying I could not understand and which offended me more than anything else. Easier to move on though, if you are not married.
 
I agree about the bearing mistrust has on a marriage.

I told my story with my first wife before (posts #14, 58 & 67). With a little sleuthing on my part, I learned of the first affair. We discussed it, she apologized and said she was committed. We had a daughter, then two years after she confided she was essentially faithless by nature. After two more affairs, I told her to leave and she got her own rented place. She managed to get pregnant by a guy, and had an abortion, prior to my getting a divorce-court date (on which occasion she didn't show up).

So most all of this situation was occurring with my knowledge, but the marriage was untenable due to vagueness & mistrust. I chalk it up to the two of us being too young when married.
 
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My youngest sister, had several affairs despite having 2 children by her husnad. They were very young..she'd had 2 children by 20...

One of her children had died .. cot death.. and when the other child was just a toddler, she left..them both and didn't even contact them,. She had a few affairs while living elsewhere. then didn;t have anywhere secure to live.. so she went back and wooed her husband again..against his better judgement he took her back..

Within a very short time she became pregnant for the 3rd time.. and he was adamant it couldn't be his... she was insistant it was..

Anyway the short story is.. she gave birth to a little girl.. who was the complete opposite in colouring to either parent or the other children.. It became blatently obvious that this latest child was not the husbands'

The tragedy is, the child became a horrible victim in this saga... her husband didn't want a reminder of her past affairs.. and wanted my sister out of his and their first daughter's life......so the baby was put up for adoption.... absolutely heartbreaking..she was such a beautiful baby too...

The husband went on with his life, raising his daughter with the help of his own parents and family.. my sister only saw her daughter.. very rarely....and when the surviving daughter was a young teen and just as my sister was beginning to have a little bit of a relationship with her ..my niece was killed in a road accident..

My sister had, had 3 children by the age of 23, and by 33 she was childless..... the heartbreak was more than most of us could bear at the time, my sister had missed out on the lives of all 3 of her children.....and the ex husband ..my ex brother-in-law who had remarried by then.. has never to this day got over the death of his beloved daughter, ..nearly 30 years later..
 
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Trish said:
If someone lies to me then I'd never trust them again so, I can't imagine forgiving an affair. I did once have a boyfriend who cheated although he always denied it. It was the lying I could not understand and which offended me more than anything else. Easier to move on though, if you are not married.
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I was angrier about the lies than the cheating. I was plenty pissed-off about both, but I despise lying. People who lie to you obviously think you're stupid, or at least that they're smarter than you.

My first wife had a habit of lying and cheating. Those habits started when she got into a habit of using drugs. They go hand-in-hand....in hand. If your SO does drugs, they're also lying and sleeping around. You can bank on that.
 
Murrmurr said:
I was angrier about the lies than the cheating. I was plenty pissed-off about both, but I despise lying. People who lie to you obviously think you're stupid, or at least that they're smarter than you.

My first wife had a habit of lying and cheating. Those habits started when she got into a habit of using drugs. They go hand-in-hand....in hand. If your SO does drugs, they're also lying and sleeping around. You can bank on that.
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yep it was the lying that got to me the most too... I cannot tell you how much of a physical pain lying to me feels like..that's from anyone who lies to me.. but to have it from the one person, I didn't realise was even capable of lying... ... came as a stab to my heart..

Then to discover it wasn't one or 2 lies.. it was almost a whole 20 years of marriage filled with lies...of one type or another.. and then the last few months of lies covering up for his wherabouts when he was having the affiair I discovered.. ( wasn't the first one as it transpires)..

The worst thing of all, he's still continuing to lie.. I get this from the communication between his lawyers and mine.. just terrible.. and still breaks my heart , but it seems to me this man who I thought I knew better than anyone in this world aside from my daughter.... isn't capable of even knowing fact from fantasy

I cannot see a time where I will ever trust another person again..
 
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I forgave my wife because, ultimately, in the first place I'd chosen to trust and marry her.
hollydolly said:
I cannot see a time where I will ever trust another person again..
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I'd gone through shock, heartache and resentment. So I mistrusted her, subsequently lost respect and interest in her. It took years to have the clarity (when resentment ebbed away) to feel I'd forgiven her. I'd moved on.

Hollydolly, do you mean your experiences have caused you to mistrust all human beings?
 
Why is it that sexual infidelity, sexual affair, sexually cheating one's spouse are no longer called what they are, ADULTRY? To give it a seemingly less emotional 'infraction' in order for it to be forgiven? Forgive, yes, but learn to accept it? I don't think so. Ironically, I divorced my (non-committed to being a husband) husband before I even knew he had an affair & got the poor girl pregnant. They married & oh how sorry I felt for her to be stuck with him. lol
 
JBR said:
I forgave my wife because, ultimately, in the first place I'd chosen to trust and marry her.

I'd gone through shock, heartache and resentment. So I mistrusted her, subsequently lost respect and interest in her. It took years to have the clarity (when resentment ebbed away) to feel I'd forgiven her. I'd moved on.

Hollydolly, do you mean your experiences have caused you to mistrust all human beings?
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Any man in my life
 
I think it's unnatural for humans to be satisfied with one partner. It's perfectly possible to love more than one person and to want a relationship with more than one. Having said that, I've never been in love but if I loved my partner and he wanted someone else, I would let him go. I wouldn't be prepared to share him.
 
Lavinia said:
I think it's unnatural for humans to be satisfied with one partner. It's perfectly possible to love more than one person and to want a relationship with more than one. Having said that, I've never been in love but if I loved my partner and he wanted someone else, I would let him go. I wouldn't be prepared to share him.
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You need a harem made up of easy for you dispossible men with varied personalities who are stuck on you. 🤣
 
Murrmurr said:
That's why I stayed single for so long. I dated and had girlfriends, some of whom even lived with me for a while, but I grew downright cynical about relationships, and especially marriage.
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this is what gets me as well.. the Irony is inescapable. I stayed unmarried, uncoupled.. for 16 years after my first marriage, because he scarred me mentally so much I just couldn't put myself through it again. I was actively against marriage, it made me shudder, all my friends knew my stance on this I was so clear about it.. I'd even feel sorry for any bride I saw as I walked past a wedding...

So..I won't go into why I ultimately agreed to marry this current husband, but I thought I knew him, we'd been casual friends for 10 years before as well....so against all my better judgements..( god help me ).. and to all of my friends Utter shock and disbelief, I married him....


This will never happen to me again... This lesson that marriage is not for me.. will be stamped on my coffin...
 
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hollydolly said:
this is what gets me as well.. the Irony is inescapable. I stayed unmarried, uncoupled.. for 16 years after my first marriage, because he scarred me mentally so much I just couldn't put myself through it again. I was actively against marriage, it made me shudder, all my friends knew my stance on this I was so clear about it.. Id eve feel sorry for any bride I saw as I walked past a wedding...

So..I won't go into why I ultimately agreed to marry this current husband, but I thought I knew him, we'd been casual friends for 10 years before as well....so against all my better judgements..( god help me ).. ad to all of my friends Utter shock and disbelief, I married him....


This will neve happen to me again... This lesson that marriage is not for me.. will be stamped on my coffin...
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One of the reasons I agreed to marry again a few years ago is my age. I'm at a place in life where I don't care to go on much longer, and the only reason for hanging around is that I'm needed. First it was Paxton, then Michelle. Now he's got a new family and she's well on her way to a solid career and total self-reliance. She could have gotten there without me, but it's great that I could speed it along. I feel really good about that. And meanwhile, she's been a lovely, caring, beautiful mate, and a load of fun to be around.
 
Murrmurr said:
One of the reasons I agreed to marry again a few years ago is my age. I'm at a place in life where I don't care to go on much longer, and the only reason for hanging around is that I'm needed. First it was Paxton, then Michelle. Now he's got a new family and she's well on her way to a solid career and total self-reliance. She could have gotten there without me, but it's great that I could speed it along. I feel really good about that. And meanwhile, she's been a lovely, caring, beautiful mate, and a load of fun to be around.
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LOL..Frank you forget we were here Pre Michelle... and all during the meeting and the courtship... :D
 
Let's face, it, Man and Woman are stinkers. Allure of the physical stuff and money most often work well together.
Temper - Temper has its scalding effect every time.
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What Big Baby needs now?
 
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In a modern science technology urban world with young people freely mixing in our civilization with many young attractive opposite gender others than their mates, say at workplaces and activities etc, one can be certain many will be attracted to each others on various physical levels to a range of degrees, regardless of how much individuals may suppress such for a society's ethical and mate behavior sake. From a man's perspective, beautiful women, especially their young faces, even if all else were hidden, are just way way too attractive.

In rural communities and in more isolated societies, where opportunity to cheat is much less, monogamy is more likely to be successful. Those likely to become polygamous includes some women up grading men for sake of their offspring as well as powerful men wanting mistresses (for ancient concubines) and plain to unattractive men looking to unnaturally satisfy myriad sexual fantasies stoked by modern media.

Our current societies and culture set we of current generations up to fail at monogamy. Monogamy could work if societies and cultures were less open to temptations though not as radically as the Moslem world decided to take. I personally would like to see humans move that direction that could start by making numbers of things less public and accessible. Per modern anthropology studies, ideally with humans for the sake of deeper more fulfilling pair love, trust, and raising children success, as well as stable social communities, monogamy without sharing mates has been a primary difference for most successful both ancient and modern societies.
 
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hollydolly said:
this is what gets me as well.. the Irony is inescapable. I stayed unmarried, uncoupled.. for 16 years after my first marriage, because he scarred me mentally so much I just couldn't put myself through it again. I was actively against marriage, it made me shudder, all my friends knew my stance on this I was so clear about it.. I'd even feel sorry for any bride I saw as I walked past a wedding...

So..I won't go into why I ultimately agreed to marry this current husband, but I thought I knew him, we'd been casual friends for 10 years b married him....


This will never happen to me again... This lesson that marriage is not for me.. will be stamped on my coffin...
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Holly, marriage is for you, you have just selected the wrong men in the past. It was not your fault, they offered things they could not commit to or maintain because of their issues.

I had a marriage, there were the normal problems but my husband had witnessed his folks walk through fire to make a solid family. They were even that once the kids were grown and free to go their own way. The true fact is that every child that lived in the area was committed to each other.

I was married for 31 years and I would say the family was together for the most part every Sunday, holiday, birthday and anniversary. It was a rare thing that we were not all together at the family home. It did not bother me except when I had things to do for our son's school activities. When that was th case I stayed home to cook or bake for a school function etc.

When my FIL passed he asked my husband to take charge and make sure Mom was taken care off. My husband was the youngest of 4 brothers but had always been the one to look after his folks, so this was a natural progression. He was there every week for trash day, twice a week and also on the weekend to do needed chores around the house.

His older brother and baby sister were still there at the weekend to visit, eat and use the pool but they did not extend the visit to include needed chores. It was me and the other SIL that helped with the cooking and the clean up Not a big deal for us at all but is hard to think, to see that their Mom struggled but they still chose to behave as children instead of adults.

The older brother got it at some point but the sister never did. When my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer I told them they had to take over their brothers (my husband) responsibilities but they never did. They even made enough money to pay for pool cleaning and the yard work. We kept things going the best we could.

While they continued to travel to nice vacations our itinerary consisted of travel to clinical trials, surgery and treatments for cancer. Lucky all the travel was paid for by the clinical trials.
I will say we were there often 10 days at a time and in between we did go on adventures between treatments and tests. I must say we enjoyed the time we spent in Arizona. The people were wonderful, we got to enjoy many restaurants and venues that we would have never seen other wise.

I will bring it up again, if you or a loved one are suffering from a rare or hard to treat cancer please check the NIH government page for clinical trials. The one we were in paid for travel, airfare, hotel, rental car, gas and meals. They also paid for all the medical care, tests, pet scans, cat scans and MRIs, and surgeries. Treated us like royalty, were wonderful. I actually found this trial through researsch before it was even mentioned to us by our oncologist. I had printed out all the needed paperwork for admission before our current local treatment failed to give any advance in treatment.

I can't say enough good words to explore this option for anyone suffering from an acute or chronic health condition, In the world today, it is up to us to be our own advocate for ourselves and our loved ones, We received many years we would not have with these treatments, If you need help researching clinical trials I would be happy to help. I have even emailed back and forth with patients in the NHS system in the UK. They are not so open there and they can use out help to be made aware of the new treatments that might be available. PLEASE DO NOT GIVE UP USE ALL OF US TO HELP YOU FIND HELP. Love and best wishes to all!!
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I'm a tolerant type of guy, but ain't no way in hell would I forgive an affair. For me, it would be don't let the door hit you. Both my exes said they knew it would be over in a split second if they had one.
Have you forgiven an affair? How do you "forgive" an affair?
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I don't want to talk about it. Not yet, anyway. Maybe never.
 

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