This was a great write up on what infidelity does to a person. I remember my wife telling her friend, “He won’t even care…”
Every part of your husband’s being has been destroyed. What I am going to say now isn’t out of anger or malice. It’s just a brief summary of what happened and his reaction to it.
He has been betrayed by the one person he loved and trusted the most. He is like a man in a sailboat in the middle of a storm, and the boat has lost its sails, rudder, motor, and oars. He is being tossed around by the storm and doesn’t know what to do.
He is ashamed. He is embarrassed is afraid of what you will do next to hurt him. He is having a hard time being around people who know what happened. He doesn’t want to be told how sorry people are that this has happened to him, and he also knows that there will be people laughing behind his back because of the predicament that he is in. He certainly cannot face friends. Hopefully he has that one friend in life that he can pour his heart out to.
Your husband has been emasculated. That is the worst thing that a woman can do to a man, especially if it is his partner. You chose to give your love and your body to another man. Right now he cannot get over that fact, and even if you reconcile he will never forget what you did. In his eyes you are not the woman he married and loved.
You are now somebody else.
There are aspects of the affair that may be hurting him deeply. How did he find out about the affair? If you came clean to him of your own volition, while it’s still bad, it is a pittance emotionally compared to him accidentally discovering the affair. How long was the affair, and did you do things sexually with the Affair Partner that you would never do with your husband? Who was the affair with? A coworker, a personal friend of yours, somebody else’s husband, a family member, etc? All of these things are emotional hand grenades that keep exploding in his head.
As far as reconciliation is concerned, only he can give you that chance. You can’t give it to him because you are the one who hurt him and he doesn’t trust you anymore.
Cheaters rarely think in advance what their infidelity will do to their partner and their marriage or relationship. At that moment they are only thinking of their needs, and they all think that they will never get caught. Surprise, surprise.
Even if your husband gives you the gift of reconciliation, there is no guarantee that it will happen. There’s no guarantee that it will last. It can take several years of pain, emotional outbursts, triggers, questions and so many other things that a cheater never thinks about in advance of the betrayal.
Your husband is going to need individual counseling just for himself, and you also need it just for yourself. To truly begin to help your husband, even if he plans to leave you, you need to put yourself in his place. He will never be the same, and neither will you, though I believe that you will recover faster than your husband, if he even recovers at all…