I finally told the truth.. now what?

[Drowned butterfly]

Hello Everyone... I am new here. Posting anyway. I have been reading through the forums for several weeks. I have searched for the magical answers and although many of the posts were extremely helpful, I realized there is not a magic wand to fix my mistake.

I cheated.. had an affair.. stepped out. However, it is said I am ashamed of every thing that I did.

Little background but not to much to bore you. I am 34 years old and the mother of 3 beautiful children. I have been married for almost 11 years to my husband. Several years ago we started to have issues and problems in our relationship. He was extremely inattentive and was very hurtful in comments and actions he made towards me. He was both emotionally and mentally abusive. I confronted him with this on many occasions with him just laughing it off and telling me I am just an "emotional woman" and that "I am lucky to have someone like him." Finally in Nov. of 2008 I couldn't take it anymore. I sat down with him, begged and pleaded for him to change. He pushed me aside and left the room. that day my heart broke in two and I vowed to put up a wall just to survive.

Forward several months. I started to explore more online for friendship and companionship. I found a man that I became friends with. It was no more then that for a long time. As time progressed we fell in love. At this point I knew my marriage was over. My husband still had not changed or was even attempting to. I met the other man and it was wonderful. We met several more times any and every way we could. I still love him and have never felt love like I have from him.

However, as time has passed my husband has began to see me happy and having more confidence. He has been in wonderment as to why I have changed so much. Thus, he has started to change as well. Over the past few months he has been really been putting forth the effort to show me that he can change and that he does love me completely. He started reading "The Love Dare" and has actually stuck with the process.

So, to date... I could not take the guilt any longer. I knew that it would eat away at me for the rest of my life if I did not confront my demons and tell my husband about the affair. I did this last night. He is devastated of course. Who wouldn't be? I don't know if he will ever forgive me. But one thing I have realized is I need to try to make this work. For him and for my children. For all that we have shared together. I can't imagine hurting him like that again. To see him crushed was the single event in my life that I don't think I can live through again.

What do I do now? As much as I love the other man.. I am ending it this weekend. I need to be free and clear to recover this if at all possible with my husband. What can I do to ease his pain? What should I say or not say? I just want the pain to stop for all of us. I know it takes time but I need someone to head me in the right direction. Any good book suggestions?

Thanks for listening and responding

[Drowned butterfly]

I could really use some advice. I am a basket case right now.

[sweethearttx]

Well I will try to help. If you have not gone into detail about WHY you had the affair, maybe you should sit down and talk to him about that. Tell him that something went wrong, tell him what drove you to what you did, and tell him you want to work it out. And ask him if he would consider marriage counseling, or what he is thinking, or what he wants to do. I wish I could be of more help. I have been cheated on by my (ex)husband, I haven't been on your end. And he never had a reason to give me.

[haushy14]

Well darling, I have been in the exact same place as you are right this moment. The only difference was that my relationship was long distance, and yours is married with 3 kids! That makes the world of a difference.

I beleive that for this situation you need to take yourself aside for a few hours and go to some place where its just you and your thoughts. That's all you need.

Sometimes in life, we live to please others. We always factor in how the other person feels, or the kids, or the person caught in the affair. I'm not saying your doing this, but if you normally do, ( like myself) you have to take yourself out of all this and just concentrate on you!

I understand that you have children, so it's not exactly as easy to break things off but think about it as you only have one time to live and be happy. It sounds like the corniest thing in the whole world but take a coin and choose which side will be what. Flip the coin and whatever answer it lands on, examine your gut reaction. The more disappointed you are about one side, the more obvious it is you dont want one.

I am definalty glad that your husband seems happier. But the most important thing is are YOU happier?

[Drowned butterfly]

Life is full of complicated choices and I just cant seem to get any of them right. My husband and I have fought, cried, and even laughed a little since I told him of the affair. He seems to be trying to take it all in. He says he wants to work at it and give me a second chance only for the kids.

I broke it off with the other man today. It was awful.. as if my heart was being ripped out from my chest. I know that I love him more then I have loved anyone in my life. It has only been several hours and I already feel myself dying without him. As badly as I hurt my husband... the pain I caused the other man is eating me inside.

This is such a terrible mess. Affairs are no good for anyone. I should have left my husband long ago. I just didn't have the nerve to do it. Now look at the mess I have created.

I know who I would be happy with. I know who my soul mate is. I know that I will never get over him.

Wow this feels like "Bridges of Madison Country."

[seren]

I am an XBS, me and H together for 26 yrs, he had an 8 month A, he told me and ended it straight away. We are 2 1/2 yrs on from D Day, and very, very happy (just to provide some background).

 

The important thing for me and H was that there was total honesty, no lying or sugar coating, just the truth to what I needed to know so I could process whether I wanted to, and could work with him to rebuild our marriage. The OW had no importance to me, none, zip, zilch, nada. In our case, neither did H have any feelings for her, so can see that in your instance my circs are different. BUT, if your primary focus is that you want to heal and rebuild your marriage your marriage should be uppermost. I understand that the feelings you had with OP were like no other, but also wonder if when you first met H, whether those feelings were there for him. I suppose I can see that A's, by their very nature, can be exciting and new and that stale marriages can look drab and second place.

 

For us, we looked at what was wrong with our marriage before the A, to understand how it could have happened and to ensure we fixed that part of our marriage. H owned his responsibility for the A, totally, he owed it to himself to forgive what he had done, and I owed it to us to look at whether I could forgive too.

It has been so very, very hard, but I can honestly say that we are in a better place in our marriage than we were before the A, both of us have worked on our act, worked on what we needed to do to fix it, and I can also say that as H became a different person (he sounded very like yours pre A) so too did I. I had, have always fancied him, loved him, but like you I shut off when he was becoming a pain in the bum, this change in him to being more like who he used to be also saw me responding to him better and we are in a beautiful place now and I can honestly say that I could not have a better marriage.

 

I understand falling in love with someone and needing to be with them, but if this person is not or cannot be your H, you really need to leave. A half marriage is no life, for either of you. I don't think A's are the answer, obviously, but there can be life after an A. I am always reminded that this is just the one chance we have at life and that it should be the best we can make it. Marriages can be healed after an A, you and your H need to sit down and have a, where do we go from here talk, what do we need to do to fix it, can we fix it talk, no shouting, recriminations (hard) just a planning of what now? NC with OM is an absolute, commitment to your marriage and its future is number one - if that is the way forward. If neither of you can agree to work through it, then leave.

[sweethearttx]

Life is full of complicated choices and I just cant seem to get any of them right. My husband and I have fought, cried, and even laughed a little since I told him of the affair. He seems to be trying to take it all in. He says he wants to work at it and give me a second chance only for the kids.

I broke it off with the other man today. It was awful.. as if my heart was being ripped out from my chest. I know that I love him more then I have loved anyone in my life. It has only been several hours and I already feel myself dying without him. As badly as I hurt my husband... the pain I caused the other man is eating me inside.

This is such a terrible mess. Affairs are no good for anyone. I should have left my husband long ago. I just didn't have the nerve to do it. Now look at the mess I have created.

I know who I would be happy with. I know who my soul mate is. I know that I will never get over him.

Wow this feels like "Bridges of Madison Country."

Well it seems to me, just as an observation from what you wrote, that you don't really want to be with your husband. So why stay? If you don't want to be there, do him the courtesy of leaving so that he can be free to find love with someone who loves him fully. Like you claim to love the man you had the affair with. There is no point in fixing something that you don't want to be in anyway. You are not doing anybody any favors, nor are you doing your kids any favors. If you don't want to be with your husband, now is the perfect time to suck up your fears and leave. You seem to know where you want to be, and it's not with him.