Is there hope? Can he change? How long to give it?

I did a previous post with more detail of the affair, but in short, my partner (male, 38) had an emotional affair (with female, 26) from around June to September this year. I (female, 40) discovered it by reading his diaries. Prior to this I had challenged what was going on in their ‘friendship/art collaboration’ and challenged why he was so checked out of our relationship, but I was repeatedly lied to and gaslit.

He was actually planning to propose to me the week after I read his journals so I'm very glad I read them when I did. There was a whole lot of compartmentalisation going on. We just bought our first house together (the affair happened between the offer being accepted and the purchase completing, which was four days before I read the diaries). I’ve said many times now that I really regret that we’ve bought the house, I feel defrauded given the situation. But he says he doesn’t regret it, he really wanted it, and he has offered me half the equity (he put in twice my deposit) if we split because he truly meant it to be our house. He says again and again and again he wants us to stay together and he can’t bear the thought of losing me and he wants to be the partner I deserve.

Since d-day, it’s been a huge struggle. He’s tried and tried but keeps slipping up. The first battle was that he would get defensive every time we discussed it, but he did work on that and was getting better. He’s even learned to acknowledge when he’s sinking into shame and just say so and ask for a pause rather than withdrawing. He’s bucked up and been really proactive with household stuff to take some of life’s burden off me. He’s been trying to arrange nice things for us to do. But emotionally, he’s just not been getting it at any depth. He says sorry an awful lot but it feels profoundly hollow cos he does and says careless things that hurt me again and again. I’m pretty sure he’s neurodivergent and really struggling to process everything and that that’s a factor, though definitely not an excuse.

He’d sent a cut off whatsapp start of October and blocked the OW on there but last Wednesday, she emailed him. I mostly believe she did think it was just a friendship and I don’t blame her for what happened. And her message was mostly fair and just to ask about some things related to an art project they did together, and asking if he wanted her to post a book back, but there were also hints of hurt and anger in the message and one thing I thought was unnecessary for her to include. I said let’s just leave it to discuss with our couples counsellor on Tuesday and decide what to do then. But my partner couldn’t leave it and he ended up saying to me that even though he knows it will hurt me and make me feel threatened and fearful and make me feel like he’s prioritising her feelings over mine, and even though he knows my wound is the biggest in all this, receiving the message had opened up his wound and he doesn’t feel he can heal ours until he’s healed theirs by discussing a few things and having a better ending with her. And that that shouldn’t be incompatible with our healing. To which I said I firmly disagree and that I’d like him to move to his mum’s for a bit.

I was actually open to one email response, crafted together, simply answering the reasonable questions, but hadn't told him this as I was waiting to discuss at couples therapy. But the way he said all that, clearly laying out all the risks to me, very much saying I know you have the biggest pain here but can you just wait a minute while I deal with mine and hers first… I just knew I had to get him out the house. I’ve been on a continuous cycle of hope and hurt from when I first challenged him on their relationship in July and I can feel the cortisol in my body from the continued stress, it’s been wrecking my physical and mental health. (Though I am managing, and I have a wonderful therapist, and though my friends weren’t great to begin with and seemed scared to talk about it, they’re showing up for me a lot more now).

I 100% get that some of you will think I’m delusional and mad to still want to reconcile, and I know this is probably part of the bargaining stage of grief. But I genuinely believe he loves me to the best of his ability. I think he’s stuck in limerence and affair fog and a total midlife crisis and guilt and shame and completely overwhelmed and unable to make sense of everything. And I think he has long been emotionally immature, and I think you need emotional maturity to have integrity and you need integrity to have a healthy and safe relationship. But I do not think he is a bad person; he has always been kind to me before, but he has also been very passive, and I think it’s passivity and secrecy and fear and immaturity that led to all this rather than deliberate cruelty. I even think his plea to resolve his and her pain first was more from him wanting everyone to be completely okay after all this and thinking those are easier to fix, but not realising/admitting that it doesn't work like that: pain in the fallout is gonna be there for all of us.

I did read in his diary (I have been super naughty and kept peeking since d-day) that he always forgets how much trauma I have and how vulnerable I can be because I am so competent and resilient and strong. And this chimes with how a lot of people treat me; I’m the one everyone leans on and I have created this myself, though have learned to show my vulnerability more in recent years, but I find people really struggle to see it and respond to it cos my strength and resilience is very real too. Not to blame myself, but I get why he thinks I can just hold all the pain while he sorts his first. It’s still shit and wrong though. But we have had that dynamic in our relationship a long time and I’ve co-created it with my caring, giving, nurturing tendencies and my self-sufficiency. Again, not blaming myself and absolutely not responsible for the affair and for his poor treatment, but just understanding the dynamics. Incidentally, any reconciliation will definitely need a move out of the parent-child dynamics we have had for a while and for him to be more responsive to my vulnerability.

Anyway. I initially booted him out just until Tuesday but then later asked for a month alone so that I can work on healing myself because he keeps spinning me out with his chaos and inconsistency. He left Friday and I do already feel much better. We haven’t talked about the details of living apart; boundaries, levels of communication etc. I’m waiting for couples therapy on Tuesday to address that. We've been sending messages and I've tried to keep it just to practical and non-emotional things, but it's hard to resist the desire to reach for him emotionally. But I also know that was keeping me on the hope/hurt seesaw cos sometimes he gives me what I need and other times he absolutely does not. So I need to start giving myself what I need and getting it elsewhere to recover myself.

85% of me thinks this separation will be a precursor to the end of our relationship. It’s the integrity thing. I can’t trust I won’t get hurt until his actions and words match up and they just haven’t been at all. He has an awful lot of work to do on himself.

But we had a beautiful relationship before. Not perfect, but lots of things about us really did work. And we’re both a bit quirky and unconventional; neither of us have many of the standard life aspirations, we both mostly enjoy nature and arts and living a more simple and fun life, rather than striving for luxury. We like the same niche stuff, have chilled and easy going temperaments, enjoy play and silliness, had a good sex life and were mutually mega affectionate which always gave me huge happiness. I think the affection compensated for emotional stuntedness cos I always felt loved by his body.

And there’s 15% of me that still hopes. That hopes through therapy he can turn himself around and sort himself out. Build up his self-esteem, work through the shame, get more clarity on his values, develop his capacity for empathy, learn to be more in touch with his own emotions and more curious about mine, figure out what to do with his life. Become a better partner. And he says he really wants that too, that it’s time he grows up and he can’t keep carrying on in life the way he is. He's only just, in the fallout of this, admitted to himself that he's probably neurodivergent and has started getting support for that so that should help.

Is there any hope? I don’t want people to bash him, even though there's good reason to. But I ideally want to hear from people whose WS managed to turn things around and grow up and be better people. How long does it take?? And will some time of separation help or hinder? And what boundaries during that time apart would be optimal?? I feel like we need no contact (aside from practical necessities) and to both focus on ourselves before we come back together, but man that feels hard. I want it though. But I also know I’ll be carrying a fantasy that we’ll reunite and he’ll have done enough work and snapped out of his limerence and shows signs of building up the qualities we both want him to develop.

I went to see the film Wicker today and found myself fantasising about new loves so I'm not completely down on the idea of separation. But I do love my partner and if we could work through this, it would be so good for both of us. I've been feeling angry at him most of today but when I returned from the cinema, he had popped back to the house to get more of his stuff, and he did quite a lot for me while here: like put up some outdoor lights he’d ordered, took the stinky bins out (I have a crazy sensitive sense of smell), did all the washing up, etc. He wasn’t great at being proactive with house stuff pre-affair but he has been since and he has shown lots of other signs that change is possible. It's just that it's all a bit surface level at the moment, but we are only just over two months out. Can it go deeper with more time? And how much time?

0 comment posted: Sunday, November 15th, 2026

4 months in - thoughts and feelings dump

I’m 40/F and two months-ish from d-day from my partner’s emotional affair. We’ve been together 5 years and were really happy before this happened. I’m devastated. Here’s a scramble of my thoughts and feelings right now:
-We just bought our first home together. The EA started a few weeks after we had our offer accepted on the house, and I discovered concrete evidence about 4 days after the sale completed (3-4 months later). I feel so angry he let me buy a house with him while lying to me. I feel like I’ve been defrauded and that the house now feels like a burden and a trap rather than the celebration and security it should have been.
-I found out about 36hrs before my birthday. I’m worried all future birthdays are going to be triggers.
-I’m pretty sure the EA was essentially one-sided. The other woman was single but didn’t seem interested in him in that way. He had a huge infatuation with her and spent those four months building an ever-closer friendship and working collaboration with her. He found her attractive before building those things. I’ve had crushes in the past and that side doesn’t bother me, they’re natural. But I’ve never tried to build closer relationships with my crushes out of respect for our relationship. He insists he wanted his crush to go away and to just be friends and collaborators with her and part of me believes him. But his actions just kept fuelling the crush; he kept chasing her time and attention and building an ever-stronger bond.
-All this time, he was distant and neglectful with me and checked out of our relationship but used being busy as an excuse. He was snippy, sensitive, defensive, absent minded. He wasn’t pulling his weight in our shared life. I kept telling him things like I feel bottom of your priorities, I feel like I might as well be single at the moment, I’m unhappy, I’m lonely, I miss you etc. He kept promising to do better but didn’t. We slipped more into parent-child dynamics too and I hated that, but I needed him to do his share of the house purchase paperwork and the only way seemed to be to nag/manage him, but that’s not who I want to be.
-He insists he really wanted to buy the house with me and even now doesn’t regret it. I regret it, in light of all this.
-I challenged him on his relationship to this woman about a month in and asked him if he was attracted to her and he lied to me. He gaslit me so many times. I listed all his female friends once and said I don’t understand why I feel so different about this one and why my stomach wrenches at the thought of you two spending time together. But he carried on insisting it was all innocent. I only got confirmation through reading his diary – something I would never normally do, but my gut feeling that something was up was so strong.
-I hate that he could lie to me so many times. I find it scary too. What else has he lied to me about?
-She was 14 years younger than me and that kills me. It feels so tacky for a middle-aged man to get infatuated with a 20-something. I know that’s judgemental of me, but I feel it really strongly. He was also in an informal mentoring role to her, so it feels like poor ethics too.
-He insists he would have never done anything physical with her and I mostly believe that in the short term, but if he’d carried on building their relationship while ours was crumbling and I was becoming more unhappy, I can see something more potentially happening between them in that context.
-He took three and a half weeks to agree to absolutely and finally cut contact with her after d-day. After me being utterly devastated. Crying all through my birthday and holiday. He fought to keep working with her (this was self-directed and unpaid work, so there were no ties to stop him dropping it, other than his emotional ones) and to keep her in his life. Said he needed time to let go, that it was too painful
-In five years together, I’ve never seen him cry. And yet when I told him he couldn’t have her and have me, he sobbed and wailed and howled. He said ‘I know I can rebuild what I have with you, but I’ll never be able to have what I had with her ever again’. It makes me sick thinking about that moment. He’s never been that emotional about me and it felt so overblown and ridiculous in a way, but still intensely painful. And the way he assumed it would be easy to rebuild our relationship too, makes me feel cheapened and unseen.
-I feel a lot of disgust. And then I feel bad about feeling disgusted at him.
-When I ask him how he could do all this, he keeps saying that he was taking me for granted, but it’s such an unsatisfying response. An understatement.
-He was planning to propose to me on our holiday and would have done had I not read his diary. I find that deeply confusing. I think it speaks to lack of integrity and levels of self denial about what was really going on.
-He gave me access to their whatsapp chat and it really wasn’t that deep. Even what he’d written in his journal about her didn’t really feel about her. It reads like a teenage crush, like limerence, like fantasy, like projection. Like wanting attention and to be noticed by someone he was putting on a pedestal.
-We are working on reconciliation, but I am spinning. I want our old relationship back but I know I can’t have it. I want the new relationship that we might be able to have if reconciliation goes well, but I know I can’t bank on it. The relationship we have right now is intensely painful and confusing.
-He’s really struggling to empathise with me and says really hurtful things without realising it. We’re in couples therapy and the therapist has told him he’s careless with words. When I explain why something hurts, he does get it, but he can never get there himself before saying it. So I feel like I’m constantly having to explain the impact of his behaviour and how he needs to correct it but again, that’s not what I want to be in a relationship.
-He’s now started individual counselling too but I have a feeling change will be slow.
-He’s always had slight traits of autism but it feels like they’ve been really amped up in the aftermath of all this. Not to say autism is an excuse or that any autistic person would do this. But I think his undiagnosed neurodivergence has played a role.
-I’m not sure I know who he is anymore. I’m sure he used to be more empathetic, but then I doubt myself. I do remember wishing he was more emotionally attuned to me, but it seemed a minor disappointment. Not like now where he clumsily hurts me all the time and seems oblivious to my feelings.
-I feel a bit dehumanised at times. And he becomes robotic when I’m upset. It’s so emotionally lonely.
-I’m confused because I really don’t think he intends to do it and yet I can’t grasp how he can’t understand the impact of all this on me.
-I feel a bit crazy. My emotions go all over the place. I’ve never felt rage like this. Sometimes he walks into a room and I start sobbing like a toddler. Sometimes I feel absolute hopelessness and helplessness. Depression, despair. Sometimes I find my strength and focus on myself and feel good and determined. And then I crash into grief again. I can’t keep up with myself.
-I have lots of abandonment and betrayal trauma from my upbringing so I know all my feelings are amplified by those experiences. In many ways this feels worse; I didn’t choose my family, and they didn’t choose me. But my partner and I chose each other. At least until he stopped choosing me for those four months. But I guess I feel responsible, like why didn’t I choose better. Why didn’t I choose someone who wouldn’t do this?
-He has done some good things in the last few weeks and is trying hard but he keeps slipping up and upsetting me too. I find it difficult to believe and trust the good and not just think it’s compliance cos he’s scared of losing me.
-I read somewhere that real love is being scared to hurt someone, not just scared to lose someone. And I know he’s scared to lose me, but it doesn’t feel like he’s scared to hurt me.
-I work in mental health and I can’t help but empathise and feel compassion and want to take care of him, and it would almost be easier if I didn’t have the skills and knowledge I have, cos then I could more easily stay in my perspective and feelings.
-I’ve felt so let down and unsupported by friends. One apologised to me for being a bad friend; recognised that she’d been feeling really triggered by my situation and had been avoiding me. Which was good of her to ‘fess up, and made me more confident that I’m not imagining it; I feel like people are scared to talk to me about my situation and are backing off and away. Which is really painful, like being abandoned by my support network in the aftermath of being abandoned by my partner.
-And people who are willing to talk to me about it a bit clearly don’t really get it, not the depths of the pain. The comparisons they make are ludicrous.
-I have a therapist who is amazing, and another professional colleague who has been amazing, but the time I can have with them is limited.
-I’m estranged from my own family and all I want is a nice and safe and loving family home to go to and to be looked after. But my family is too toxic so I feel really alone.
-I worry my family fucked me up too much and I don’t know how to make good decisions and pick good people and have good relationships. I know that’s a self-pitying place to go to though and not helpful.
-I’m really scared of being single right now. I loved dating 5-6 years ago, before this relationship. But I can’t imagine the same enthusiasm for it now. I hear too many bad stories. I reckon all the good guys must be taken. I guess I don’t trust my judgement on people after this too. I feel less confident in my body with the death of the body positivity movement, and after feeling snubbed for a 20-something. I feel more wary and judgemental of men. And also, the world is going to shit, the government are telling us to stock up on supplies. If I’m going to be holed up with only tinned food and bottled water while whateverthefuck we’re prepping for is going on outside, I’d rather be with someone than alone. I hate knowing that these things are impacting my decision whether to stay or go as I want my decision to be about me and him.
-I really liked our relationship before. It wasn’t perfect. I wished he could be more attuned and emotionally mature and prioritise me more. But no relationship is perfect and I was broadly happy. I was always scared to buy a house with someone but I wasn’t with him, when we got our offer accepted. It just all imploded after that.
-I would love for it to work out but I’m worried about his capacity to turn things around.
-I also struggle to feel confident that my feelings can change and that I can let myself trust him again. I feel so profoundly wounded. And I’ve been as wounded by things since d-day as before. This didn’t need to happen. How could he be so selfish and cruel and heartless and uncaring towards me? It’s not like it was a momentary slip; it was four months of bad and hurful choices.
-I really miss sex but I can’t even sleep in the same bed as him at the moment. We can snuggle on the sofa, but anything more intimate and I go into a fight/flight response and my body shuts down and locks up and fills with anger.
-I keep wanting to download dating apps and see what’s out there, or even have a hook up, but I know this would not help the situation in any way at all. The fantasy is part revenge, part self-esteem boost, part feeling more in control. But I know it wouldn’t help. But I question what it means that I keep thinking about it. Do I still love him?
-He’ll never not be the man who hurt me this much.
-What he actually did with the other woman isn’t really the hurt, their relationship seems mostly innocent in reality, just his feelings weren’t. But the lying to me and the neglecting me and prioritising someone else and just generally recklessly risking everything we’d built together. The disrespect. All the times I told him I was unhappy and he didn’t change his behaviour. All the times he gaslit me and let me feel crazy. It hurts so so much.
-It feels like sabotage. I’d just finished a professional qualification, we were buying a house, he was planning a proposal (I’ve never been that fussed about marriage but I would have said yes if not for this) – it was like life was all coming together. And then he blew it up. And I don’t know why. And he doesn’t know why. And now it’s like he’s frozen and confused and fumbling and sad and ashamed. But he did this to us.
-Can I ever respect him again?
-I know that at some point I’ll be okay, but when? I keep reading it takes 2-5 years to recover from affairs and that’s depressing. I’ve had a rough five years and everything was gearing up for life to calm down and be a little simpler and then this hit.
-I feel like I should have a question, but really I just feel a bit of a mess and want to feel less alone with that.

41 comments posted: Tuesday, November 10th, 2026