Struggling - positivity only, please
Long post😞 super complicated
I’ve chosen to stay in my marriage, but my husband had an emotional affair with someone from work about a year ago. It was about 3 months and ended when she was randomly murdered by a someone I worked with in their youth (I’m a social worker). That’s a whole other piece of trauma and the sequence of events is unbelievable but true. I confronted him a week before she died (not knowing it was her but feeling a general disconnect) and the week after her funeral when I started questioning the depth of his grief. I read all the text messages and conversations and it was flirtatious and around their shared interests. he did draw a line with her and say they couldn’t talk about things unrelated to work anymore, but I was devastated and betrayed. I always told myself (and him) that I would never stand for that disrespect. we went to counseling and things improved - our marriage is completely different (for good) than I ever thought it would be. He’s since gotten on medication for depression and been more open and honest, changed jobs (even though she’s obviously not there anymore).
I’m feeling triggered by other things I’ve read on here about emotional affairs and people’s response. I know my decisions are my own, but it makes me re-question things, probably because this is the anniversary week and feels like a vulnerable time in general. My anger has resurfaced this week and the general betrayal of it all. We talk openly about it whenever it arises and he’s attentive about checking in. I’m having feelings again of wanting him to be punished and feeling like it’s unfair that he gets to continue this life with me despite the decisions he made. I know it’s still fairly new and we’re healing, but I’m getting so stuck in the thoughts of things being unfair and the “what if’s” of her being alive still, but the reality is, she’s dead. I actually got pregnant (which was shocking because my cycles were so irregular with stress - but I’d gotten my IUD out before things sparked with her) and my due date was her death date. We lost our child at 20 weeks so that adds to the weight of everything in August and the complicated grief around it all. Sharing that grief with each other also moved us closer to just being completely transparent about things. I just feel so much and need some encouragement. We have for obviously reasons not been able to share the full details with people we know, so I just needed to put this out into the abyss and ask for some encouragement. Please understand and be sensitive to that. Even in my questioning I have decided to stay and move forward in this. I know that is a choice, just as his actions and words were choices...but it’s hard and messy.
Let's Glow!
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