My Story

[notmyself]

I'm really too sad to read all the threads here. I've read a few and I can't seem to stop crying. I've been married for 11 years and I have two children. Up until a couple of years ago, I was so totally in love with my H and we had a very strong marriage. We have had financial struggles over the past couple of years and he has had a lot more stress on him than usual. When he is home, which is not often, he is preoccupied with work and worries. I have felt neglected in the worse sense. I have felt neglected emotionally and sexually. My H knows how much I need and love intimacy but says he can't mentally focus on that until our finances are straight. It gave me such a hopeless and sinking feeling. I've talked to him about how lonely I've been and how I just wish I could see him more. He just said this is the way it has to be now. I'm not justifying my behavior at all but I just thought I'd give some background to why I think I did what I did. I met a man this year and we became close friends. We have a lot in common and after we started talking for a while something told me deep down inside to avoid him because I was starting to look forward to seeing him and less enthusiastic to see my H. I have never cheated and I've always been disgusted at cheaters. Since I met this man and since my H and I have been even more distant, my life has slowly spiraled out of control. Seeing this OM gave me such a high and brought back the butterflies and strong feelings I used to have for H. I have become the very person I've always hated. I have become a cheater. It started out as an EA but progressed quickly to a full PA. I was happier for a while because OM was giving me the initimacy I so longed for. What I wasn't getting at home, I was getting from him I could just escape my world and bury myself in him. I've been full of guilt at times and full of pleasure and happiness at times. Sometimes I can juggle the two lives and sometimes I fall apart at the seams. I truely love both of these men. Yes, love is an action and obviously I am not showing love to my H, but for many years he was my life, my best friend, my lover, the father my my kids, and I still miss him. When I say miss him, I mean I miss what we used to have. I miss us being each other's priority in life. I love my OM too. I don't put him on a pedastal. He has lots of flaws and problems. I just fell in love with him despite it all. So here I am. I told OM today that I can't live like this anymore. I can't look my H and my kids in the eye and pretend I'm this wonderful wife and mom without a little piece of me dying inside. I've changed a lot this year. My self image has deteriated to nothing. I don't feel worthy of my H at all. If I didn't have little children, I think I would just tell him to find someone that he deserves. It would hurt like hell but I'm hurting now. I don't even know how I became this person I loathe. I'm too chicken to fess up and risk losing my family right now. I can't stand the thought of my children wondering what happened to their safe, comfortable family. I guess I'm here to ask if anyone else has survived this and what it takes to survive and stay married. I have been selfish but I'm at a place where if I go any longer with OM, I'll just keep loving him more and loving my H less. I don't want to leave my H to be with OM. I'm realistic enough to know that losing my H and family would destroy me. I have been living the "best of both worlds" but I can't do it anymore. I only belong in one world, and that's with my H. I'm preparing myself for the loss of OM but I don't know how to possibly prepare for such a thing. I've never had to walk away from someone I can't stand to be away from... someone who gives me the only happiness I've felt lately. I'm doubting myself more that ever. A lot of people say once a cheater, always a cheater. What if that's who I've become? Why have my values and morals taken a nosedive just to be close to another man? If you have had an experience similar, I'd love to hear from you and what steps you took to recover. I am so raw with emotion now and I want to be as honest as possible. I know what I've said makes me sound like such an awful person, but the truth is the truth.

[lkjh]

Plain and simple life is hard and with the current economy its getting harder. Your H is off making sacrifices to help your family, meaning you and your children. You are repaying him by banging another man.

 

You flat out said you knew where this was going and you should have stopped it but you chose to carrying on.

 

This is not what you want to hear but your life will never be the same and you H will find out one day. How he finds out and how bad it hurts him is up to you. If you try and live a life of lies he will find out one day down the road when he thinks everything is good and that will destroy him.

 

You need to write everything down in a letter and give it to him. He has a right to know and he has a right to know now, and he deserves to hear it from you. Not some third party down the road. I know you think there is no way for him to find out but one day he will find out. Do not deprive him of whatever life he has left.

 

 

BE HONEST

[InceptorsRule]

I love my OM too. I don't put him on a pedastal. He has lots of flaws and problems.

 

Yes I agree with this, for example, your OM's choice in women absolutely sucks.

[2sunny]

your H is overly stressed because he works so hard to support a cushy lifestyle for you and the kids - and you reward him by cheating because he's so busy making more money for you?

 

either a) divorce him so he can work less and find a gal that loves and respects him. or

 

b) stay and be honest so he has a choice in knowing he's with someone who betrayed him. and/or

 

c) stay and sell everything so he doesn't need to work so much just to not have time for his family. and/or

 

d) start working too - to take the burden off of him soley.

[What_Next]

So you want sympathy? You won't be getting any from me. My STBX did the same thing to me. You know what I did? I got my own place and in less than 30 days I'm outta here!! You know what else I did?? I'm divorcing her!

 

Honestly I hope he throws you out like an old newspaper. You are a selfish person that is going to hurt EVERYONE including yourself.

 

How dare you. Oh and try paragraphs the next time.

[hopesndreams]

I truely love both of these men.

 

You are deeply disturbed. Please see a professional. You are emotionally abusing your H. It must stop.

[Iconoclast]

Ok, only way out of this is tell the truth, and expose to everyone. Why expose? Two things, it really helps to prevent the affair from returning, and it will show action on your part to your husband if you expose. Well, a third thing... it keeps people from talking, perhaps making it seem that your husband was not "man" enough for you, thats a big one and you better pay attention to that.

 

You allow him to monitor you 100%. No secrets.

You answer any question he has whenever he asks it, for as long as he needs to ask.

You call the OM in front of your husband, and tell him to hit the road.

You never have contact with the OM again.

You offer to attend Marriage counseling and perhaps Individual counseling.

You help him heal, because that is what can heal you.

You do this proactively, he needs to see remorse, not listen to your guilt.

 

This is the only way out, and it's still a crapshoot. He gets to decide.

 

You're in pain. That is obvious. But really, it's a breeze compared to what you are about to dump on your husband. You have no idea what you have done.

[DazednConfused]

Aw. Poor girl. You've read the responses of the above and you probably feel like even strangers with weird names are coming down on you... how in the world will you cope when the people you claim to love (your husband and family) know about this?

 

I always really dig it when I hear "I was feeling so unloved and unappreciated, and intimacy is so very important to me" I'm willing to bet that this epiphany happened just about the time the new guy began paying extra-special attention huh? Seriously, think back... perhaps new guy even suggested this was the case in one of those innocent heart-to-heart talks. You see, married women (at least the decent ones; and I'm giving you the courtesy of assuming you fall into this category) must have a solid justification (at least in their own minds) to give themselves permission to do another guy.

 

I notice in your post, you mention what you stand to lose as your family and that your kids may find out... but you stand to lose a husband who is busting his ass for you and you don't even give him an honorable mention. Kids go on loving their parents regardless of whos a miserable cheater... but spouses do not have to.

 

You had every opportunity to make the right decisions and you chose the selfish ones every time. This is like inserting the knife every time you went w/ the OM. Each little lie, every false reason for leaving the kids w/ the babysitter is a twist of the knife and he's gonna feel every one over and over.

 

What really sucks is that sooner or later there is gonna be another dude around here with his heart in pieces and his soul crushed wondering how in the hell this could have happened when he was nothing but a truly stand-up and support his family guy. He'll be emasculated, shell-shocked, angry, depressed, disappointed and above all lonely. Even his friends who know will secretly think he wasn't man enough; and he'll even start to believe it himself.

 

I am super glad you feel guilty... it's at least a start. Now tell your husband what you've done and hope you get to keep your family intact. What he doesn't know IS hurting him, because it's tearing you apart and yaking what little he's been getting from you away. He deserves to know the facts and decide if you are worth keeping.

 

The above posters were right; you have no idea what you've done here.... and make no mistake... it's all YOU who set the explosives, might as well light the fuse and see what happens. I wish your husband all the luck he can get.

 

-Dazed

[Moanin]

I can tell that you are really conflicted and hurting. You should post on the OM/OW site. You will get kinder and more helpful responses. The responders here (for the most part) are angry, betrayed spouses and their world is pretty black and white.....

[imagine]

There are two types of cheaters. The ones that care and the ones that care only for their pleasure.

 

You fall in the former and are likely to hurt. Your husband has been working for his household and disclosure WILL hurt him. The knowledge of you cheating is worse than death. You continue to destroy him and you know it.

 

Thanks to the endorphin generated by the affair, it will be difficult to stop. Right now you are a drug addict to love.

 

From the experience of others in your situation - you will not sleep. Lying will increase and you may experience panic attacks. While you may not to tell you husband now, you will eventually. Beware of telling the trickle truth as this will hurt him more.

 

Distancing yourself from your husband may drive him away and then you'll have OM to yourself -with all his faults and if he still wants you. You need your husbands help. There is no guarantee that he will stay.

 

Honesty is better than deception.

 

Can you survive your own infidelity?

[Untouchable_Fire]

I'm really too sad to read all the threads here. I've read a few and I can't seem to stop crying. I've been married for 11 years and I have two children. Up until a couple of years ago, I was so totally in love with my H and we had a very strong marriage. We have had financial struggles over the past couple of years and he has had a lot more stress on him than usual. When he is home, which is not often, he is preoccupied with work and worries. I have felt neglected in the worse sense. I have felt neglected emotionally and sexually.

 

Bottom line:

 

If you want to be done with the OM... you need to tell your Husband the truth.

 

I get that your scared... But you created this mess 110%, so get some courage and fix it. Take whatever lumps come your way serve your time and move on.

 

Stop being a scumbag and start being a good person again. It feels better than you can imagine. I promise you that.

[lostsunsets]

It would be far worse if you don't tell your husband. Then as well as being a liar and a cheat, you will be stealing his life. Stealing his future and self determination. Taking away his choice to either stay or go. Robbing him of the ability to either work through this situation in his marriage or leave to find happiness with someone else. How would you like to be enslaved to a person and not have the freedom to choose what to do with your life?

[wicar1]

I can't believe you "love" your OM. Please divorce your husband so that he can find someone who can truly charish him.

 

Agree ...100%

[woinlove]

I can tell that you are really conflicted and hurting. You should post on the OM/OW site. You will get kinder and more helpful responses. The responders here (for the most part) are angry, betrayed spouses and their world is pretty black and white.....

 

That's interesting. People on this forum are either saying she should quit seeing the other man or leave her husband. What other options do you think people should recommend?

 

Do you think people whose world is not so black and what would advise her to continue cheating? That deceiving her family isn't so bad, she just has to get more used to it? What advice would you give to her that doesn't require her to either come clean with her husband or leave him?

[JAGeezer]

So, you're blaming your personal flaws and weakness on the fact that your H is busting his tail to support you in the lifestyle to which you've become accustomed....other man and all? How thoroughly cliched.

 

You have four possible futures ahead of you that can broadly be divided into right and wrong. However one thing that you have to do is realize who you are. Accept the fact that you were never the person you believed yourself to be. That you are the sort of person who's willing to risk destroying your H and kids for some sex with someone that you have no business being with. There are folks over on the OM/OW board who will claim that you can be a good person and still cheat. My one word response to that is...b*llsh*t.

 

WRONG:

 

1) Continue as is and hope that you don't get caught. I see that as unlikely. You've here, which speaks loudly to the fact that you guilt is already eating at you. You're going to get caught.

 

2) Stop it now. Cut off all contact and get some therapy. Become the W and mother you always thought you were and should have been, and never tell another soul what you've done. Again, unlikely. The guilt will get you, and I honestly don't think you're strong enough to do it. Most cheaters aren't. And to top it off, it would be dishonest, because you'd be making your H remain married to a woman who is essentially a phony. A skill liar who's selling him a bill of goods every single day for the rest of his life.

 

RIGHT:

 

3) Cut off all contact, confess all to your husband, and hope that he's strong enough to to forgive you. The odds on that are very low, regardless of what others on this board may tell you the hard numbers say that less that a third of the marriages in which a partner cheats survive long term, but you have a shot at trying to get your marriage back and getting rid of some of the guilt. Survive or don't survive, it's the honest thing to do. Your H deserves to know exactly who and what he's married to.

 

4) Cut you husband loose. He deserves better than this. Better than a cheating wife. This has the added advantage of never having to tell him a thing. Just get the divorce and go shack up with the OM. Happy ending for you.

 

 

Yeah I just said a lot of biting sarcastic things, but truthfully, did you expect sunshine and roses? Bottom line, cheaters have an almost overwhelming propensity for self-deception. I lurked here a long time before I posted and I've seen it again and again. It's always the same song and dance, with minor variations.

 

Here's the acid test. There's love, and there's in love. Love is an emotion, loaded with nuance and in your case with hormones and lust. However, being in love is a state of mind wherein your happiness is dependent on the happiness of the person you claim to love. So, who are you in love with here? Surely what you're doing won't make your H happy. If I handed you a gun and told you that you had to kill one of those two men right this instant, or watch them both die....who would eat a bullet? Your H, or the OM? Who are you in love with?

 

Once you can answer that question your choice is clear, because the right thing to do is to end it with one of them, perhaps both of them, but certainly one of them. And then work on building (or rebuilding) a life with the other one.

 

I'm rooting for your H, because he's the one that made a commitment to you for life and sweats blood at his job for you and your kids. He deserves a choice and a chance. He's more than earned the right. But one thing...if you choose him and confess all, what he says goes. You'll have to surrender all or most of your privacy and independence for a LONG time to come, because you'll have proven to him that you can't be trusted to have either one without using them to betray him.

 

As cut and dried as the choices before you are, any or all of them are going to have hard consequences. This isn't an "Ooops, sorry honey. I made a mistake." This was a choice that you made with your eyes wide open. To pursue something that you wanted and knew that you had no right to, and to hell with the consequences.

 

I don't envy you the next phase of your life. It's probably going to be loud and ugly no matter what you do, and it may last anywhere from years, to the rest of your life.

 

Just remember, you have no one to blame in this but yourself. You did it. No one else.

 

JAG

[Steadfast]

But the truth is, I haven't read one response to this thread that I didn't agree with. Well, except the usual 'bitter people' response. Lame.

 

That said, there's no reason to add my two-cents about your actions. It is clear however that you need someone to make you happy, and if it isn't your husband then you'll get the attention you seek from someone else. Selfish, yes, but also immature. Instead of thinking of how it was affecting you, you should have picked up a shovel and told your husband 'we're digging out of this mess and I'm helping, OK? I want my husband back.'

 

No telling what he'll do when he finds out, but make sure it's you telling him and not someone else. Or else. There is no going back. You have MUCH BIGGER problems than getting over the OM. Fix you and see what's left when the dust settles. He might try, he might not. Let him make that decision. It's too late for anything else.

[witabix]

Ok notmyself, I am sure you have read all the responses. I cheated on my now exW and I have been cheated on as well. My house is most certainly made of glass, so I will not be able to throw stones.

 

I will put it to you like this.

 

You are lost on a journey and you don't know where you are or how to find your way back to the correct route. Berating yourself for getting lost will not help you find your path.

 

To find the route home you must retrace your steps to the point at which you think you took the wrong turn. Only you will know where this happened. Then you must set out on the route that will take you to where wish to be. You said it is with your family.

 

You made a bad decision. Not because you cheated per se, but because you are now suffering, personally, the consequences of your own actions. You must accept the full responsibility of your freely made choice, and accept that, in light of what you are now feeling, how wrong that was for you.

 

It was also wrong for the well being of your family. I am not judging you with this sentence. That is only my opinion.

 

You have strayed from your own path of happiness, your family has fallen under the shadow of financial strain. This led to a distancing of husband and wife. You were at a crossroads, and seem to have chosen the wrong path. To be weak is human, to err is human, to respond to kind words from the wrong quarter in the absence of closeness with your spouse is understandable.

 

This does not excuse it, you know that, I don't have to tell you that. I recall only too well the morning I told my wife about my affair. I never want to see that look on another woman's face as long as I live.

 

You must now find the strength in yourself to return your heart to the man who has worked so hard for his family. If that is what you wish to do, if you still love him as much as you claim to. (I do not doubt that you do).

 

It is never to late to try. Trust your own strength, trust your husband's heart to find the strength to forgive you, trust that the love you had will come to the rescue of this sad situation.

 

I have used the word trust here a lot, but that is all we have in each other when it comes down to it.

 

You must trust now, yourself first, you must forgive yourself also and ask for your husband to forgive you. The other man? I think he has no real place here for you, except as a palliative for something you have lost in your marriage. I doubt if he is, or has, any answers or lasting comfort for you.

 

You are facing a hard time, a fire of the soul, be brave and walk through it. Hold the image of your children and your hard working husband, of the time before you took the wrong path, of the love you shared making those children, of the images you can muster of the future of your family growing stronger through the trials ahead.

 

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak;

courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Winston Churchill

 

My thoughts are with you in this difficult time.