‘I’m brooding about my husband’s past affair. Should I just leave?’

He wants to have counselling, has always been deeply regretful, says it was madness, and that he felt neglected – which I think is pathetic

My husband and I have been married for nearly 20 years and have two teenage children. About six years ago I discovered (by going through his phone) that he had been having an affair with a woman he met at a conference. It went on for about six months and they “met” twice but messaged endlessly. He wants to have counselling, has always been deeply regretful, says it was madness, and that he felt neglected, which I still think is pathetic. We are keeping going but, although I think I still love him, I don’t trust him and no longer see the point. Should I just leave?
– Brooding
We are so sorry that you have been going through this for the last six years. It is such a heartbreaking betrayal. In your longer letter (edited above) you tell us that you thought you were happily married and that the discovery of your husband’s affair was a terrible shock. We are sorry to suggest that “going through” his phone is not a happy place to be. Do you think, with the hard and horribly earned wisdom of hindsight, that some part of you knew before you knew? Nonetheless, you must have felt – and still feel – that everything you believed about your marriage was no longer true. Your husband has been unable to convince you otherwise. Going through these years and sitting with these feelings with no therapeutic support sounds to us like breaking your leg and not getting it set. Things have stayed broken as you two have continued to limp on. So, where do you go from here?
You must be exhausted. Six years of unresolved anger, distress and anxiety can be increasingly, rather than decreasingly corrosive. Time, alone, does not heal everything and you may well be feeling worse as the years roll by. This is a particular kind of grief. We would imagine that many things he does or does not, every effort he makes or does not make, what he says or does not say, only serve to feed and re-trigger your sorrow and fury. “Pathetic”, though contemptuous, is easy. It’s easier than “This is the man I love who broke my heart.” Easier than “My husband made some terrible and hurtful decisions but maybe I could look at my part in this partnership.” We are sorry to ask more of you when you are so depleted, but you are at a crucial crossroads for you and your family. This is do or die. 
If he is pushing for counselling, that implies to us that he is fully prepared to be hauled over hot coals for his actions. Sure, sometimes counselling can provide an exit strategy but, even if it comes to that, one could reasonably expect that an end supported by a therapist might be healthier and less destructive than a rotten finale devoid of communication or acceptance. He says he felt neglected. You find that pathetic, but it was his reality. He felt it. The fact that he chose to act out on that feeling is lamentable but neglect is still part of his experience of your marriage. He may have felt neglected because you had young children and that will de-oxygenate most marriages. He may have felt neglected because you didn’t love him very much and you might be better off without him. Is it possible that your relationship was in slow decline and the discovery of an affair injected a dose of negative energy into the situation that reinvigorated your dynamic in the worst way? Maybe he’s a lying, cheating m———–. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to find out?  
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Suspecting and resenting him will not keep him faithful; will not protect you from hurt; and will not take you or your family anywhere happy. If you find, after some therapy, that you truly cannot trust him, then perhaps you might choose to pull the ripcord. Because a marriage without trust? What’s the point? This is not about winning at marriage, it is about finding out who you both are now. You will have changed exponentially both over the last 20 years and since these awful battle lines were drawn six years ago. It must be almost impossible to see yourselves or each other clearly in this miserable emotional swamp.
If you have any hope that this is a man you could love cleanly and committedly again, then why not cleanly commit to a proper investigation of where you are and how you might navigate the next bit? One day at a time, in a dedicated rebuilding or dismantling of this long marriage. It’s not over yet, Brooding. You have come so far and been through so much. Go the final furlong and see where it takes you. Fully in or fully out: either way it will be better than this awful loneliness. Do the work, Brooding. Do it together. It might be the last thing you do as the couple you were, or the first thing you do as the couple you could still be. It will be OK in the end. You just need to find out what OK looks like. 
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