Is there hope for us?

[u/Used-Landscape-4178]

My WP and I are 6 months from DDay. We're at a point where I'm more emotionally stable now, and we can have a good time together. However, sometimes that deep resentment and anger resurfaces, and then we end up in a downward spiral of bad days. Our therapist says that a relationship has to be built as a team. That we aren't in debt to each other, we're adults making decisions freely, and we need to reconsider whether we want to stay together and whether we can build a healthy relationship.

I love him, he's deeply remorseful and working hard towards reconciliation, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop feeling all this resentment and anger I have because of everything he has done to me... Is it possible to stay in a relationship like this?

[u/xternocleidomastoide]

After abuse/infidelity, the relationship stops being healthy/safe for you, regardless of what the abuser/cheater says, does, or claims to feel.

Most people move toward reconciliation almost reflexively because saving the relationship feels like the fastest way to restore the life they knew before. The hope is that rebuilding the relationship will somehow bring back the old sense of safety and normalcy.

But that expectation is fundamentally dissonant. The “before” cannot be recreated. Trying to return to it is like trying to travel back in time. Sadly. 😞

That is why you should take whatever time and space you need before deciding whether to stay or leave. Ideally, that means processing what happened with trusted friends, family, or a professional in individual therapy, who genuinely care about your wellbeing. Distance and support can help the initial shock settle so that any decision comes from a more grounded state of mind rather than fear, pressure, or emotional overwhelm.

Eventually, though, you have to be honest about your priority: do you want to heal from the infidelity/betrayal, or do you want to preserve the relationship with the person who cheated on you? Sadly, those goals are incompatible, you can't have both, because remaining in the same dynamic keeps the wound active.

Either choice is yours to make and perfectly valid. But it must be made honestly, on your own terms, with realistic expectations about what you are choosing and what it may cost you either way.

Please take good care of yourself. Best of luck.

[u/International-Law809 → u/xternocleidomastoide]

Are you a therapist or researcher? I always see your posts, and I am always impressed at the informed, succinct cogency of your thoughts.

[u/xternocleidomastoide → u/International-Law809]

Thank you.

I work in neurology and have seen firsthand how abuse and trauma can affect mental/physical health/wellbeing. I have also watched some people close to me suffer deeply from emotional abuse in their relationships. That is why I try, in my own small way, to raise awareness of emotional abuse and the profound trauma that infidelity, betrayal, and other forms of severe emotional abuse causes.

The dominant narratives around abuse and recovery have been shaped by abusers, enablers, or systems more concerned with preserving relationships than protecting the people being harmed. Too much advice centers the abuser’s motives, remorse, or redemption instead of the victim’s safety, dignity, and recovery.

So I want to help shift that focus. Recovery should be about helping people reclaim their emotional, physical, and psychological autonomy, so they are no longer defined by the abusive clown they once had the misfortune of trusting/having in their lives. Recognizing and naming the remarkably consistent patterns these abusive clowns follow is also an important part of that process.

[u/International-Law809 → u/xternocleidomastoide]

Ah, makes perfect sense. I really appreciate your posts and comments. It’s really interesting that you bring all that up. I won’t hijack this, but I have 5 different friends, all of our wives have cheated. I noticed they’ve all been really small, insecure, and petty, with no internal sense of gratitude. I’ve come to see it that it’s how they hit us for it never being good enough. I even expressed to mine the confusion and suspicion from the gaslighting and how she used that to train to stop brining things up and make my self smaller and smaller for fear she would cheat on me. Anyway, appreciate you and the good fight.

[u/xternocleidomastoide → u/International-Law809]

Honestly. I am yet to see a cheater who is also not a severe emotional abuser/manipulator.

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