Q. I am completely floored by an affair my husband had many years ago with a colleague. He decided to stay with me and we have had a relatively happy marriage and grandchildren to enjoy.
We met as teenagers and have spent our whole lives together. After we’d been married a couple of years, he met a colleague with whom “he had a connection”. The affair continued for a few months until I challenged him. At the time he would tell me that it was nothing to do with me and praised her physical or personality attributes compared with mine, which left me distraught. Initially he wanted a divorce, as he thought he loved her, but he decided he wanted to stay with me, ended the affair and has always said he stopped going into the office so as to avoid her. He was promoted, we moved and he claimed he never saw her again. I have since discovered this was a lie.
A few years before Covid, when a number of health triggers occurred, I became increasingly fearful that my husband would bump into his previous lover and leave me. He had described their affair at the time as “a love affair so strong” neither of them “could do anything about”. I broke down one day, told my husband about my fear and he was shocked, telling me he loved me more than ever. For some reason, my need to know why he’d had the affair, what it was about her that attracted him, became obsessive. We had some dreadful rows, often fuelled by alcohol.
I became sure he’d seen her again. I pursued my search over the internet and eventually he admitted he’d worked “alongside” her in the job for a decade. Although he denies having spoken to her, he has admitted he knows several things about her. I felt completely floored by this revelation. I think I believe him but feel that after all the lies and deception, I cannot be entirely sure.
I am no longer sure I love him or can believe anything he says. I feel battered and bruised after the last few years but I don’t think I can live without him. We still make a good team. I forgave him the affair many years ago, yet I cannot forgive the lies and nastiness in recent years or the fact we lived such a lie for ten years when she was “back” in our lives — in whatever way. I would greatly appreciate your views and advice, even if it is just to tell me to give myself a shake and appreciate what I still have.
Jo
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A. Affairs occur in about one in five of all marriages, undermining the foundation of the relationship as trust is broken. While it is estimated that 25 per cent of men and 18 per cent of women have an affair at least once, this does not end all marriages, as about 53 per cent are able to recover after working through the issues. However, this is something you have clearly been unable to do.
Although your husband’s affair happened many years ago, your subsequent uncovering of new information means that you can’t stop obsessing about it. Your obsession with the details of the affair and whether to trust your husband is common — up to 60 per cent of people in your position experience symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Indeed, in 2005 the psychologist Dennis Ortman described the condition post-infidelity stress disorder (PISD), which has core similarities with PTSD: feelings of anger, stress, depression, frequent crying, flashbacks and nightmares.
You are clearly struggling with many features of PISD. You ruminate obsessively on the details of the affair, have painful memories that cause you to relive the traumatic experience (known as trauma recall), are chronically and persistently anxious, and are caught in a cycle of doubt and despair. And, as you describe, this results in the classic trauma behaviour of hypervigilance — being constantly alert for possible further danger or threat in your marriage as a way to protect yourself from future trauma — as well as an inability to trust.
Intrusive and spiralling anxious thoughts are a common and extremely painful symptom of PISD. The constant ruminations that “floor” you are related to the past (what really happened?) and the future (what might he do again?). You are desperate to know the truth, down to the minutest detail, but the extent of your anxiety has resulted in a level of paranoia where, because your trust is shattered, you now perceive all communication or contact your partner had with his colleague as a potential deception and can’t fully believe his assurances to the contrary.
It is normal to want to find answers and to gather information to help us understand what makes us anxious. Uncertainty is not a comfortable psychological state. At a vulnerable time in your life, discovering the continuing presence of your husband’s colleague has triggered your PISD, which has taken you back to the early pain of the affair, even though your husband claims that nothing further happened.
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There are many reasons why you are stuck with these spiralling intrusive thoughts. Initially your husband was evasive, then he was open about his thoughts on whether he wanted to leave you for this other woman, complimenting her at your expense (a selfishly defensive act). There were inconsistencies in the initial discussions and, due to your investigations, the narrative around the presence of this woman in your husband’s life changed over time. That there were further secrets revealed at a time when you were vulnerable (increasing your own sense of fragility and need for support) destroyed any trust that had been rebuilt. With your hypervigilance reignited, intrusive thoughts are keeping you in an anxious-insecure state of mind.
For a marriage to recover from an affair, the necessary process requires intense dialogue, honesty and the confrontation of painful issues within the relationship. This has not happened for you, so your PISD rumbles on, causing you immense psychological pain. It is understandable that you want answers: you need to quieten your intrusive thoughts, but this quest does nothing more than deepen your pain. Often, the torturous state of not knowing means that our imagination fills in the gaps, potentially creating an even more traumatic narrative.
You need answers to be able to trust your husband again but are caught in a double bind. Your anxiety can only be assuaged by answers to your obsessional questions, but your anxiety also means that you struggle to assess rationally whether your husband is telling you the truth. This creates a spiral of suspicion. Therefore, the trauma-related underlying anxiety that fuels your obsessional thinking and repetitive questioning needs to be addressed so that a healthy and reparative conversation can take place. The problem is that the only way these trauma-related thoughts and feelings can be addressed is when you decide that you have the truth from your husband. Meanwhile, your alcohol-fuelled conversations, which never end well, only serve to embed suspicion and trauma, creating a no-win situation.
There are two approaches needed here. The first is related to how you and your husband can have a different kind of conversation that moves you on to a place of understanding and peace (perhaps with a marriage counsellor supporting the process). And the second is for you to receive some trauma-informed support so that you can calm the anxiety, assert your needs and feel confident in a more rational state of mind. Then you will be able to decide whether or not what you are hearing is the truth (see: mind.org.uk). I wish you well.
