You put a lot of stock in how people perceive you and them judging you based on you cheating on me. I think you fail to realize that a lot of people judge true character by your actions now and not before. Look at how you are treating me today. I am a woman who is standing by you no matter what, wants you to be the best person you can be, believes in you, wants to build a family with you. If you don’t feel that from me, I think it has a whole lot more to do with you forgiving and believing in yourself than it has to do with me. I don’t want the upper hand, I don’t want to hold things over your head. I think there’s things for years you’ve thought I needed control over that were misplaced. Often my frustrations have been because you haven’t had enough input, that I wanted you to take the lead. I just also wanted a voice too.

You want to know how you won’t be a cheater again? It will take time, commitment, and you really understanding your behavior patterns and how to break them. You need to see how stress plays a huge factor in your life and how you’ve been mismanaging it for years. This didn’t just happen because of infertility issues. There was also the house and feeling like a failure. There was work dominating your life in an unhealthy way. There was a lack of hobbies that didn’t involve me. There is a lack of surrounding yourself with good people that hold you accountable. There was a lack of communication that involved being open vulnerable and intimate with me that you were afraid of. It is trusting me to tell me when you find other people attractive, what your fantasies are, and exploring some of them after we build trust. It’s knowing that I’m not perfect, and if I respond in a way that hurts you or makes you feel criticized or judged, you call me on it so we can work through the framework of what I mean, how it’s perceived, what reality is, and how it can be better communicated in the future. You choose every day to be the person you are. You can be someone people look up to and say damn, I wish I had a thoughtful, devoted person like that in my life. You can be the amazing father I know you could be. Loving and vulnerability do not make you weaker but you also need to communicate your wants and needs in a healthy way.