My husband’s infidelity

My husband cheated on me. I married out of love when I was 17. He’s three years older than me. I was a virgin. Two years later, I had a daughter. After five years of marriage, I felt that my husband had cheated on me. There were no visible signs in his behavior at all. It was just that my soul was torn apart with pain. Even after sex, tears would flow like a river. I can’t explain it, but I felt the betrayal acutely. In bed, I gave my husband everything he wanted, wherever and however he wanted. I loved sex. I loved my husband with all my heart and soul. I saw us as one. And a week after my suspicions, I started showing symptoms of several STIs. Since I was very young, doctors convinced me that my husband must have caught something in a sauna or dried himself with a dirty towel. Over the years, I gradually came to understand that the betrayal had indeed happened. I would have breakdowns about it from time to time. I interrogated him, wanting to know the truth—whether he had betrayed me or not. He denied everything. He said I was acting irrationally and making things up, which drove me to exhausted hysteria. He even suggested that maybe I had infected him, even though I hadn’t worked outside the home at the time. Besides him, the only things in my life for eight years were our child, housework, and care. My love for him never faded. I loved him with all my heart, and he claimed to love me too, but he was always stingy with attention. I never received flowers or help with the child, even though I begged him often to spend more time with me. Almost none of that happened. Then I got a job. After that, I started going to nightclubs with the girls from work and felt a breath of fresh air—attention from men, admiration for me. But at home, I was constantly anxious about being betrayed. We kept having arguments about it from time to time. Eventually, I started having affairs with men. Not emotionally. I just picked someone who liked me and whom I liked in return, and we had sex. I didn’t want to be with them long-term. The point was to have as many different men as possible, just sex. I wanted to get revenge on my husband. But then I would suffer because there was a 0.3% chance he hadn’t cheated on me, and I was betraying him. Then the realization of his betrayal would come back, and I would run away again, caught in this cycle. My husband reluctantly let me go. But no one could stop me anymore. I didn’t leave the house—I ran every weekend. I was afraid of being alone, of not having attention. Five days a week, I was a devoted wife and mother. But every Saturday, I went out with friends. My affairs with men didn’t bring me the relief I hoped for. After nine years, they stopped. Over the years, as I started working, my husband gradually became a little more attentive and caring toward me. Everything seemed fine. But sometimes, arguments and hysteria still happened, all for the same reason. I never got the truth. And I couldn’t forget. He didn’t know about my affairs with other men. I told him I just needed to dance because I loved it so much. Now, after 34 years of marriage, I’m 51, and he’s 54. We look young for our age—I’m told I don’t look a day over 38. Inside, I still feel like a 27-year-old girl. During our latest argument over the same issue, my husband finally admitted that he had cheated on me after five years of marriage. He said it happened once—spontaneous sex at his workplace, in his office, when he was drunk. He regretted it the very next day and never did it again with her or anyone else. He swore on the health of our children that he was telling the truth now. He said he let me go to nightclubs because he felt constant guilt. My world has collapsed. For two weeks, I haven’t been living—I’ve just been existing. I’ve cried, screamed, hit him, cursed him. My heart and soul are shattered. I don’t know what to do. How can I survive? I loved him so much, always. And I don’t understand. At the time he betrayed me, he was the most important thing in my life. He was my only one. And he betrayed me so deeply. For eight years after his betrayal, I remained faithful to him. But with each passing day, the desire for revenge grew stronger. Still, I held onto the hope that he hadn’t cheated on me back then. And now the truth I both sought and feared has come out. I started interrogating him hysterically, and he told me all the details. He said he had sex with her in three different positions. That destroyed me even more. I can’t bear it. I just can’t. At the same time, I told him the whole truth about myself—that I had been with other men. He was shocked, though he had suspected it. Now he’s crying and trying to blame me for being with men, not just one but many, just like he was. During this period of confrontation, we had intense sex. We’ve always been intimate. But now, with everything between us, when I know he betrayed me, betrayed the girl who worshipped him—most people probably wouldn’t have sex with their husband in this situation. But I allow it, and I don’t understand why. What’s wrong with me? I love and hate him at the same time. Now my husband is trying to give me flowers, make beautifully arranged breakfasts, and tell me about his love. He says he’s always loved me and only stumbled once. It’s like a rollercoaster—arguments, then sex, then arguments again, tears, pain, pain, pain. What should I do? How can I ease this pain? How can I forgive? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop remembering or reproaching him for the rest of my life. I love him and hate him.