Recently I discovered my husband had been cheating on me . He confessed. Our marriage has been difficult due to many things, not always because of us, but of course all those things had some effect in our relationship. Due to quarantine I had to work extra time and there seemed to be less and less time to spend together at home.

This situation led me to stress, anxiety and other emotional problems. He had lost a member of his family and that also took a toll on him. So we distanced more. Two years after all this he confesses to me that during this time he had had some affairs with people online, but that he confessed this to me because he loved me and wanted to save our marriage. I knew something like this could be happening but didn’t really want to even think about it. When he told it to me I felt my world crashing, that everything I knew about my life was a lie. I felt so lost. I would’ve never thought he could do something like this. I thought we were at least at some level of trust to let me know if he had decided to move on or that he had doubts about us. He knew trust was important for me.

So, That moment I realized I loved him so much that I tried to understand that he meant no harm and that he was truly sorry, he was just confused and maybe even depressed (when he confessed I saw emotions that he had always tried to hide) and he felt the need to talk with someone, and then it all escalated and got out of control for him. I saw and felt him sincere. So we decided to give our love a second chance. I wanted him to be part of my life, I wanted him to be my husband again.

Then there was a little problem, because the person he had the affair with was continuing to write to him, trying to get him back. He told me he had no interest in her, but he was sorry he had harmed yet another person so he wanted to be a friend to her to help her move on. This was something I didn’t want to accept. For me it was like it needed to be over, he needed to stop contacting her. He told me he felt the moral need to help her through this, and I was not convinced of this but I accepted it. After that I developed trust issues, I thought many times if his contact with her was purely to help her move on or if he was still kind of attached to this person. I experienced many of the stages of grief. I was angry, I didn’t want to accept it. I felt it was my fault. I felt it was all his fault. I didn’t want him to think my accepting to him continuing talking to her was me “giving him permission” to have “the best of both worlds”. I was so afraid, and a mix of emotions. He noticed all this so we talked about it and he said that my doubts and fears had him thinking it would be better to take some time to think about what he wants in life, and if our paths will cross again then we will be stronger than never. I regretted I had that last talk with him, because I see it like I ruined the little progress he was making towards me.

I’m trying to take it easy, but I sometimes feel so much fear of losing him. I try to grow and let go of the bad things and I know it’s better to be 100% sure of what you want, and I want a man by my side only if he’s truly committed, but at the moment the things I feel and think don’t always match.

Any thoughts about it would be appreciated, these are things I don’t feel comfortable talking with the few friends I have and I needed to let it out. Thank you so much.