I found out my partner was having an affair with someone he met at work. Their connection didn’t stop when they were away from each other. When they traveled or went back to their home country, they continued exchanging sexual messages. Distance hadn’t ended it. Finding out meant realizing how much had been happening without my knowledge.
I decided to give him another chance. That was my decision, even though I was hurt and angry. Now I think they may be talking again. I don’t know for certain, and I don’t want to turn a suspicion into something I claim to know. But it has brought me back to a question I can’t answer: if he likes her so much, why is he still with me?
Since I discovered the affair, we haven’t been intimate. He’s the one who doesn’t want to be. So while we’re still together, there’s this distance between us that I don’t know how to interpret. I gave the relationship another chance, but I can’t make closeness happen by deciding I’m willing to try.
When we talk about it, he brings up what I said during the fight after I found out. I told him to “be a man.” I called him cheap. They were harsh things to say, and I’m not pretending otherwise. I was furious, and those are words he says hurt him.
I can acknowledge that without understanding where it leaves us. Is he still too hurt by that argument to want intimacy? Does he want to stay in this relationship? I don’t know how much his explanation tells me, especially while I’m wondering whether he’s in contact with her again.
What confuses me most is that he’s staying while seeming unwilling to be close to me. I don’t want to invent a reason for him or assume I know what he feels. I want to understand his actual choice. If he wants to be with her, why hasn’t he left? And if he wants to be with me, what is he staying for?
