Are the disturbing images of your husband with his lover haunting you?
Do you find yourself visually imagining your husband being with his lover, over and over again.
Learning that your husband has cheated on you can leave you feeling desperately unhappy, lonely and yearning for simpler times.
A happily married couple shares extraordinary intimacy, both physical and mental. But in the aftermath of his betrayal, you find yourself plagued with visual images of the affair that haunt you day and night.
Obviously, you need to find a way to stop obsessively imagining how it was when your husband took his lover in his arms. That way lies madness.
Distraction
Imagining your husband lying in bed entwined with his lover is a normal thing to do after learning of his affair. You may also imagine him speaking with his lover over coffee or sitting in a movie theater sharing popcorn with her – the list goes on and on.
Remember that you are imagining events that did not occur exactly as you see them in your mind’s eye – and actively work to stop this sad-making habit.
Teach yourself to do something when you begin to imagine his affair; do 10 jumping jacks, bake some cookies, meditate, call a friend, play with a child or do whatever distracts you.
It may not seem like it now, but if you consistently distract yourself from visualizing your husband with his ex-lover, you will be able to move on. Deepak Chopra, cofounder of the Chopra Foundation, suggests that we interrupt our negative thought patterns by setting a concrete plan in action in response to them.
Creating a plan
While distracting yourself from hurtful thoughts is a useful tactic, you do need a strategy for dealing with the origins of these thoughts. You may be worried that your husband no longer loves you, that he will have another affair as soon as the opportunity presents itself, or that you can no longer trust your best friend.
You can take steps to rebuild the trust you and your husband once had, if you are both willing. The excellent “The First Step to Surviving Infidelity” program provides some concrete steps on how to deal with the mess of emotions you have to deal with after an affair has rocked your marriage.
An affair can leave both you and your husband feeling adrift, unsure what to do next. Putting together a plan that you both commit to following can push away some of that uncertainty and help you to see what a future together – post affair – might look like.
Forgive your husband
Sure, you may feel like pulling your husband’s hair out or kicking him out of your bed or leaving him to eat dinner on his own but these are not helpful things. If you love your husband and you believe that he loves you, forgive him. Do it for you. Carrying around resentment can raise your stress level, increase your blood pressure, cause you to abuse alcohol and more.
Forgiveness may require some couples therapy or an innovative marriage bootcamp like the one available here. If you actively decide, as a couple or on your own, to save your marriage, you should use all the tools that are available to you. Also, forgiving your husband will help you to dispel the hurtful images that flit across your brain now and then.
If at first you don’t succeed
You are navigating through uncharted waters; if you have to make some adjustments to your plan, do so. You may find a therapist that you respond to but your husband doesn’t. Maybe you could have a few solo sessions while your husband seeks out a therapist that he believes he could work with?
You might find the idea of a marriage bootcamp more appealing than couples therapy. If you continue to try new things, you will boost your chances of success.
Are you ready to give them up?
It takes time to get to the point where those painful images in your head go away completely or at least diminished in their intensity to haunt you. You really can’t stop the images from coming. But you can replace those negative images with more positive ones and also make a deliberate effort to not dwell on them.
I know it’s tough to deal with those recurring images of your husband and his lover. But if you want to break free from the haunting fantasies, you must be willing to let go, give them up and not hold on to them as a justification for your pain.
How can I leave that behind when I pass the area she lives and he stopped by every day, before and after, how if she called me and explained to me everything in detail, how to look passed it when I remember his words when I asked him how he managed “you trusted me that’s how I was able to go on with the affair”, and how if he shared with her all out most deepest and personal matters, work, family etc.????
I hear you MI, it is not easy. Trust is a huge part of a relationship and the easiest thing to break and the hardest to rebuild. Some things that might help is asking yourself why you want to stay in the marriage. Once you are able to answer that question I would then challenge you to take a look at yourself and ask yourself how much control do I have over this situation and is this something that you are truly able to work pass. remember you can’t change what happen but you definitely are entitle to feel what you are feeling. When he says “you trusted me” what I hear him say is him putting the blame on you for his affair. This was not on you.. This was on him and him alone.
best of luck
I live across the street from my “other woman”. This is so hard.
I recently found out my husband was cheating with my best friend’s friend which I also know just not very well. I can’t get it out of my mind!! I just can’t understand what I did for him to decide to be with another woman!! I’ve tried to put it out of my head it seems impossible though. I feel as if maybe he’s not attracted to me anymore, we’ve been together 20 years now. But the woman he cheated with is nothing like me at all. I mean I know I’m not a beauty queen but this woman is three times my size!!! Nothing against big women by any means!! But come on, I have always told him that if he feels the need to cheat on me to at least please upgrade from me. I am trying my absolute best to get over the situation but I want to know what happened!!! I want to know every detail of every little thing they did together so just maybe I can quit imagining what did or did not happen between them!!!!
Knowing most of the details didn’t help me. Three adultrous wife’s, twice I’ve known the gritty details, it seemed to make it worse. Cause all I can picture is her loving every minute of it. Time. Time helps. Moving on to someone who will treat you better.
I am 4 weeks into this new horrible life:( i thought everything was great we have a good sex life he is my best friend we go on date nights with out our kids every 2 weeks and 4 weeks ago he just came out and told me…i am completely in shock….i can’t stop picturing him with another girl…it was a one night stand he says but how could i know he came home that night and got in bed with me and our baby. I love him so much i just can’t figure it out. I feel like such a fool that i didn’t have any clues. I need advice from anyone on how to stop picturing it.
My husband has cheated on me emotionally, and physically for the last 10 years. I, also, had an affair years ago in an effort to catch his attention. But now I feel like he uses that as grounds to continue to step out on me. He says I have fallen out of love with him, but the last time around I caught him in the backseat of a pickup with his friends wife on my BIRTHDAY! How can I continue to love someone that seeks affection and feeds his ego with other women, who are also married. I know that he has told them our deepest darkest secrets, and personal info to seek their attention, not that I have a lot to hide, but that sucks also. We have kids together, and that is the only reason I have stayed so long, it gets harder and harder everyday.
My son was playing spaceships in his Dad’s other car. He looked into his Dad’s gym bag. And found the affair phone. On my birthday.
Nearly two years later (I’ll never forget the date of my discovery) and I can’t get past it. HE refuses to discuss it, he just wants me to get over it already, sweep it under the carpet, BUT I READ EVERY TEXT SEVERAL TIMES right until he bounced in from work with “I have your presents!” My then 15 year old daughter held up the phone and said “she already got your present”. If it hadn’t been for the dreadful situation, the look of happiness on his face crumbling to an expression of absolute horror would have been comical. At the time my eldest son, who was then 16, was towering behind me with his hands on my shoulders (I’m 4’11”, everybody towers above me, interesting since HE said, “she looks a lot like you, but taller, with longer hair, which is a natural brown colour” (my hair was then deep purple) as if that made it okay somehow – a younger, slimmer, more normal version of me but without the stretch marks of carrying his three children, and I am a size 10, what was she? Jaysus, a tight size 6?) and looking ready to kill his father. Husband’s first priority? How was the phone discovered? Upon being told he yelled at our 12 year old “You’ve ruined our family”. My little boy was already in tears.
He said I was allowed to ask 5 questions and that was it. Whilst I asked he sat glowering on the sofa, arms and legs tightly crossed (the body language spoke volumes). He gave short sharp answers and…….that was it. I made him sleep on the sofa whilst I stayed up and cried all night. He complained he was tired in the morning and he had to work. He pestered so much I let him back upstairs after 10 nights. Whereupon he pestered for sex. He had sooo many excuses, most of them aimed at me, basically it was my own fault. Two years, no discussion, not allowed. So my resentment has increased. How do I forgive somebody who refuses to talk about what he did? He spends tonnes of money on guilt gifts but still WON’T DISCUSS WHAT HE DID so how the hell do I move on? I can’t ‘sweep it under the carpet and forget it’, nor can I forgive him, not without him talking to me. The five answers by the way;
1. We met at Jury’s each time (lie, the first time was clearly in our car, I’m not stupid).
2. You weren’t intimate with me often enough. And when you were, and asked why you couldn’t leave scratch or light bite marks, it was because she’d see them and know I was still having sex with my wife. (oooo, clever)
3. Of course I always paid for the hotel room, I’m a gentleman.
4. Your bipolar was a huge problem for me, do you have any idea what it’s like living with a person with a mental illness?
5. She listened to my problems (what, like your frigid, mental wife?) and was kind to me.
I have worked my ass off trying to make our marriage more intimate and interesting – surprise picnics, fun date ideas, conversation cards to find out fun stuff we don’t know about each other (one example – if you could have dinner with 5 people, dead or alive, who would they be? That kind of thing) and he’s done nothing. He buggered up yet I’m doing all the work to fix it.
Forgiveness? HOW?
Dear Moth,
I so hope this response reaches you 3 years on. I wonder how you are doing now? This is me. Just the same. Over18 months on from discovering my partner of 28 years has been leading a double life. NO DISCUSSION allowed, just DRAW A LINE UNDER IT! You said everything I am feeling. I am cracking up. I said he needs to pay for my therapy. Of course, he replied. How mad is that, he would rather fork out God knows how much we can’t afford rather than come clean and help me heal! Are WE the lunatics here. How do you ever move on? I have resorted to snooping and have since found out that this was a pattern of serial flirting ( he says it wasn’t physical but I am not sure) going back at least 15 years,. My whole life feels like a lie and ALL my precious memories are ruined. To compound everything I have to translate all the evidence into English. I am utterly exhausted. Fed up with the screaming matches. Incensed that when I ask for explanations all I get told is ‘we’ve already discussed this’ as though he volunteered the information. NO! I snooped and called him out. To further complicate things he has been seriously ill and uses feeling bad as an excuse to kill the conversation. However did I get into this position? He thinks we are moving on and any attempt made by me to express my distress is taken as a willful attempt to destroy our chances of moving on! Give me strength.
Thanks for letting me vent. I feel your pain Moth. I really do.
My husband had an affair with an ex of his. He always told me she broke his heart and he couldn’t stand her. We’ve been together just over 6 years when the affair happened. He told me he was going to a concert with the guys and didn’t come home. I became a super detective when I awoke and found his location and went their to confront him! Apparently a mutual friend of theirs had passed recently and they re connected at the funeral. The Affair continued from there another month I found out this a few months later Into trying to make things work l! I was distraught he was ripping our family apart! It has been over a year now and we seemed to have grown a lot making changes fixing issues talking , obiding each other’s requests but there is still that bothering question that he never has an answer to , why wasent I good enough? Now everytime we’re out and see her my mood comes crashing down. And all of it replays again in my head ! He wanted her and not me. I just don’t understand how I’ll evwr move on if I keep having these thoughts
I’m so sorry that this happened to you anonymous. This is a very painful situation. What comes to my mind is that this affair is ALL about him trying to work out his own feelings of rejection, abandonment issues. I would suggest he go to counselling to get it figured out. You are enough! He wasn’t enough for himself to resist the affair. I hope you will embrace your own self worth and beauty. All the best in your future!
Hi. I just Found out again that my husband has had another emotional affair on line. This happened within the first year of our marriage and subsequently throughout the next 22 years. He also had a physical affair involving just sex, and surprisingly enough that doesn’t really bother me. When we got married I was Still young thin and beautiful and thought all was well, but this is when it started. He started with chatting online then meeting up but no sex. The next several times it was chatting and emailing and phone calls. Then the physical sex. Over the years this made me feel really insecure and unattractive and I got Fat. After that when I iniriated sex he would saying ugh or ewww. This girl was not even pretty ugly but thin. I t ventless found out about a truly emotional affair while I thought We were happy. I saw All the messages. She got all the lights be attention flattering introduction to his friends. He would call her beautiful every day. I found A pic when they met. Never have a seen such a smile on his face not even with his son. Come to find out she was a true whore having sex with everyone. In addition she was ugly and FAT! I just Do not understand why. He says it was a joke. It was no joke even though she played him. He actually gave her all the last be while his friends all had sex with her. Again why? I eventually Lost a ton of weight and had several one nightstands that didn’t mean a thing that he cannot get over. I still Cannot get the why. He is trying everything to get back with me but he is not showering me with the lioness and attention she got. Can we really rebuild the trust without the why. I gave Him my whys.
Jennifer I really feel you, I’m exactly the same, I want to know every detail, I want to have a clear image in my head so I can move on knowing what happened. My other half told that many lies about it after I found out that I don’t know what’s true and what’s not. Also with how they look, I get where you are coming from, the other woman in my situation isn’t larger than me but personally I don’t think she’s very attractive and would rate myself more so, but most of the time tbh I don’t think it has anything to do with that, which should make us feel better but it doesn’t 🙁 it’s so difficult to move on when it’s all you can think about.
I just found out about my husband’s affair two weeks ago, when the “other women” sent me a picture of the two of them. I’m devastated, of course, but at the same time, I have more hope for our marriage than I’ve had in years. It ended a year ago, but supposedly she has been threatening to tell me for a year, so he has still talked to her to keep her at bay. The blow up came because she was coming to town and he refused to see her. We are seeking counseling, but talked more in 5 days than we have talked in 4 years. The worst part is he had her in our home, as I go back and forth between two states, because I am unable to move to my children out of the state I lived in when we got married and he was unable to find a job. Now, I go into our home and have panick attacks; he says she was never in our bedroom, so I go there and can’t come out. I can’t stop thinking of him sitting with her on our couch or in the guest room with her and she keeps contacting me with “new information” that he says isn’t true, but they are both liars, so how do I stop seeing images in my mind and focus on his and my healing and not on what I am imagining was happening?
I recently found out my husband of 13 years has been sexting several women On a dating app he has sent and received naked photos , told them he’s single we have one child and I’m due for our second in 9 weeks he’s apologised and said he’s disgusted with himself but I just don’t know what to think like he believes it was all just a Fantasie hiding behind a sceeen but he acted upon that pleasuring himself to take photos in our family home I feel so betrayed and hurt like how much longer would have this continued unless I found out we have agreed to work on our marriage but how do I trust him again I can’t stop picturing all the messages he sent and received
8 months ago I found out my husband had been having an affair for 9 months. I have stayed with him because I believe that it’s over and that he truly regretted what he did. The trouble is I still cannot get it out of my head, picturing them together I even look at her social media profile to see what she is doing. I know I need to move on but I’m stuck in the cycle. I struggle to trust him at times too.
I found out about my husband’s affair nearly a year ago. The woman called me. I can’t have the images of them together because I’ve never seen her. To me that makes it harder because I wonder what she looks like and did he find her more attractive than me. He has only told me that she’s much older than me and she’s not attractive. He claims he only was with her once but I don’t believe that. The thing that made it so painful for me is that he did it just days from our 20th anniversary. The anniversary that was so important to me. This man was perfect in every way to me before this. He treated me like a queen. He isn’t one of those men that are out with friends leaving me alone like some husbands. I’ve had serious health issues and he has nursed me , worked and took care of the home. He always called me his queen. He was everything that we women hope for in a man. So that made it even more devastating to me because I never saw it coming. It’s been almost a year and it doesn’t get any easier for me. We are approaching our anniversary again and its just a reminder that a year ago when I was planning our anniversary together he was with her. Now he’s on a job where he’s gone a lot and honestly I wonder all of the time what he’s doing. I have never talked to anyone about it. Not even my family. So sometimes I feel like I’m going to explode from grief. I grieve the past we had. I grieve that my perfect man was capable of causing me so much pain after so many years.
My husband told me 25 years into our marriage that he had cheated. 1st was on a work assignment, the next was at his bucks party which a whole. The 3rd time was with a prostitute when he was away again. He even said he told me how lonely he was and thought I’d told him to do it! The next time was in our house. Not our bedroom because someone else was in there in our bed doing the same filthy thing. It’s now 8 years later and it still hurts just as much. I’ve been to counseling but she wasnt very good. I’ve had to deal with it alone. However, he was very forthcoming g. I asked scores of questions and he answered them. I asked about every single detail. because it was so long ago he couldn’t remember everything. I wanted to know all the sordid details so there wouldn’t be any secrets. I didnt want anything g to be left out. This however was a double edged sword. It gave me peace of mind that there were no secrets but now I had a very detailed picture of every encounter. I am glad I did it though. It has left me totally without feeling. I don’t feel love toward any thing or any one. The past 8 years have been just … numb. Thanks for listening.
Jennifer I feel the same way. My fiance and I found out we were pregnant, a week later I had to go out of town to take photos for my older sisters second birth.. while I was gone he cheated on me. The girl looks nothing like me, I’m brunette and she is platinum blonde..
I keep blaming myself, if I just wouldn’t have gone out of town that weekend.. I just keep wondering where his mind was.. I was literally home the next day after he cheated on me. We also had sex the day I got home. How could he do that? How could he look at me let alone have sex with me after what he did. I just found out not long ago, four month after the affair happened. It makes me question so much. Was it my fault? What exactly did they do?
I know how my fiance are together, or how we were and it just kills me that he may have done the things we do.. with her. The way he talked to her, had sex with her, kissed her. It eats me up inside. The pregnancy hormones dont help either. I think about my son that he took in and cares for like his own.. How he didn’t think of any of us while doing what he did..
How long will I dwell on this?
Will I ever move past it?
It sucks that I don’t even know how to act, as if I don’t even know him anymore..
Honestly, i just wanted to leave my husband straight away after i found out that he contacted his ex girlfriend (the woman he cheated with before we got married) and they are planning how to be together and how to kick me out in this country, so they can be happy family with my husband’s son (from his 1st wife) and my own 2years old daughter. And he was also talking with this single mom on snapchat, they call each othey hubby and wifey💔 He kept flirting with different woman on facebook. He also have very bad depression and he always use this excuses. But i cant leave as he is using my daughter also, that if i will leave he will not gonna let me bring my daughter to my home country and i will never see her again. I cant live without my daughter, So Ive chosen to stay but all the bullshit he have done is haunting me everyday! Im so sick of it, of myself from thinking it and hurting myself. I always mention to him, all his bad doings in our marriage and behind my back.I love him but its not much at all anymore, i feel like its fading slowly😢💔💔 I just want to go but i dont want to wreck my daughter’s life and her having complete family. Im confused if what I really want of my life.
I need some help, I am M-38 and my now ex is F-33. We’ve been together for 16 years, not married. 2 children, we live together. Ive put her through hell throughout those 16 years, not showing affection, not doing things loving partners should do, snappy and aggressive over stupid little things. Sure there’s been some great times but overall I’ve hurt her. Cheating, I’ve cheated twice, the last time was when her father was dying and I wasn’t there for her during this time. I am ashamed of myself. The first time cheating she found the pictures of me and another women during the second time cheating and during her father dying all at once. Shes still begged me to come back after her dad died and I did, I came back because I love her, I wanted to start afresh, I got a job that pays OK and the plan was for us to buy the government owned property we was living in, we’ve been back together for over a year and she’s been having therapy as she cannot get me cheating out of her head, the pictures she saw too. Things were OK, one day we hugged passionately in bed and felt happy. The next day she started giving me the silent treatment, a few days later she comes clean and says she loves me but she cannot continue, it’s over. I also found out she stopped the therapy a week or so prior. She wants me to move out as soon as possible. She says she cannot forgive me for what I’ve done in the past, says she’s tried but failed. Says too much has gone on for it to be fixed. She don’t believe I love her. She’s not convinced. I’ve not been perfect in these 16 years, I’ve been ignorant to my behaviours. Only now am I looking back and seeing my faults. Eating her away. I want her, and my family to be together, happily, enjoy life and live a happy normal life. It doesn’t look good. I may need therapy myself to fix my snappy moods, I believe I can control it now though, I was ignorant to it but I’ve woken up and can see how stupid I’ve been. Please help fix this for us.