from a Heartbroken Cheater

[Dexter Morgan]

I'll accept that my advice is biased.

 

But...here's what doesn't make sense.

 

You claim that telling her H would be a selfish act. I claim, as a husband who has been betrayed, that telling her H is what her H would most likely want her to do.

 

ya, but the people telling her to take the cowards way out and not tell her husband don't care what you want as a betrayed husband.

 

the cheaters on here that side with her don't care what their victims want.

[bentnotbroken]

its not her actions I take exception with....its that she only cares about herself....she only mentions that she is in pain....not because she is betraying her husband, but because she can't truly be with the other man.

 

nothing judgemental about it. and even if it was....spare us. judgement is nothing compared to what she is doing to her H in real life.

 

 

Every time someone says what they see it is judgmental. It happens everyday. We all judge each other and each others actions. In the work place, at the restaurant, in the grocery store check outline. Get a grip. Life is full of choices and judgments.

[eamherst14051]

Marriage is 50/50, nothing more and nothing less. If it's not 50/50 then one person is not pulling their fair share. (Assuming that both parties are equal) Lets say I am cheating on my wife and contact an STD. Well since I'm cheating I am the selfish one. Being selfish I only care about my well being and not my spouses. Therefore I keep her in the dark. One night after some heavy drinking my wife and I get romantic, we have sex and oops!!! Well I can't tell her now and she deserves it anyways for making me cheat. The h_ll with her. Being selfish is great.

[porter218]

Lostinlove, The difference is you have a choice in this matter..your H doesn't. You chose the A, sure you didn't plan to fall in love...but you did plan to cheat. Your H didn't chose any of this. Not one bit. That powerless feeling is worse then anything. To me..more then the sex itself, the lies are what tore me apart bit by bit. An insult to my intelligence.

I am not 100% convinced you are in love with your OM. You don't live with him. you don't have that day in day out intimacy that comes with a M. It isn't the same. It sounds a lot more like an A fog to me. It will be hard, but if you leave him you will eventually get over it. I don't see it being worth your M. Maybe you even have love for him...but not 'in love'. Give your H a fair chance and give him all of you.

[butler89]

knife fight?????

 

What I am saying is that, people assume that the person who had the affair HAS NO IDEA the kind pain their husband or wife is feeling. That is a crock. Of course there are exceptions. If your spouse is a garden variety selfish, sex maniac who just likes to get his/her rocks off. Or If your spouse is just bored and wants some excitement, in an otherwise OK/good marriage/great marriage...well then I dont get that. And if your spouse is having problems or feeling as thought something is wrong in the marriage, but never communicating it to you.

 

But their are plenty of marriage where there are real issues and where the spouse who had the affair did so because they compelled to seek solace, emotional support for very real problems that are not run of the mill. And where they are depressed and run down by what their partner is putting them through...and where the spouse who had the affair, clearly verbalized these things OVER and OVER and OVER again.

 

Of course you have the choice to get up and leave. And yes in retrospect i should have done just that. But silly old me. i didnt want to actually really abandon him. In fact the only thing that kept me emotinally sane was the affair. Which i know was wrong. But honestly it staved off my depression and allowed me the capacity to deal with his depression and emotional abuse while he was dealing with his own life issues...that he brought on to himself! And which have ruined my life too.

 

People lie when they say it's that easy to just leave. first off there are some of us...who love the person (love is crazy) and hope they can help the person grow and change and become more emotionally healthy.

 

Leaving would surely mean taking the kids. You wouldnt want to be left without your children. Which would surely have happend as he cannot support himself. Right now i could be dating someone else and my 4 year old would be looking up to him like he was "daddy" but i don't want that.

 

Also he would have been financially ruined.

 

I want my husband to go back to who he was and to pull himself together emotionally. not use me as his emotional punching block when he is stressed and scared.

 

Long before he felt the pain of adultery. I felt the pain of his complete and total emotional abandonment, his emotional abuse...all learned from dear old dad.

 

My husband is still with me. And believe me he is not the type to ever stay with someone who he knew cheated on him. But the bottom line is he knows i am not some cheater...and by that i mean someone who takes it lightly, ever thought she would do it, or condones it. I am certainly not proud of myself! He knows that my affair came out of some very real, and serious issues that he chose to ignore..becasue he was scared and completely SELFISH. Yes he was selfish.

 

I honestly wasnt skipping around having the time of my life during the affair. I was in serous pain. What i am saying is i know pain....and my husband knows i know pain...and that's why he stayed.

[Dexter Morgan]

Lostinlove, The difference is you have a choice in this matter..your H doesn't. You chose the A, sure you didn't plan to fall in love...but you did plan to cheat. Your H didn't chose any of this. Not one bit. That powerless feeling is worse then anything. To me..more then the sex itself, the lies are what tore me apart bit by bit. An insult to my intelligence.

I am not 100% convinced you are in love with your OM. You don't live with him. you don't have that day in day out intimacy that comes with a M. It isn't the same. It sounds a lot more like an A fog to me. It will be hard, but if you leave him you will eventually get over it. I don't see it being worth your M. Maybe you even have love for him...but not 'in love'. Give your H a fair chance and give him all of you.

 

if you read her post, she is only concerned about her pain as a result of not being to truly be with the OM. it doesn't say a thing about concern for her husband. Its all about her and the pain of the inevitable loss of another man.....not because she is effing over her husband.

[porter218]

if you read her post, she is only concerned about her pain as a result of not being to truly be with the OM. it doesn't say a thing about concern for her husband. Its all about her and the pain of the inevitable loss of another man.....not because she is effing over her husband.

 

I noticed. She sounds very much like my boss who is deeply in a selfish A fog. I listen to this same stuff every day at work. But I figured I would let her know what it feels like on the other side. Not that it will change her point of view because I have been explaining this for 2years to my boss but she doesn't get it.

[jthorne]

You said your H was taking steps to make the M better. So what are YOU doing to make the M better? Newsflash, cheating on your spouse won't accomplish this.

 

So, after 4 months of monkey sex, you've decided that you just can't live without OM. Live without what, specifically? If your H didn't exist, do you think you two would run off into the sunset together and set up housekeeping? Live happily ever after? Really?

 

No matter, H DOES exist. And you are destroying the M that he is trying hard to fix. So what's the OM got that H doesn't?

 

Come on. You can make a choice. You just don't want to. You want both. But in having both, you are hurting both. And in trying to keep both, you may loose both.

 

I agree that it's despicable to keep your H in the dark. If you were in his shoes, you probably wouldn't appreciate him keeping you in the dark. But I doubt you'll tell him.

 

So do both men a favor and make a choice.

[Silly_Girl]

Yep been there and done that and it is HELL. I suggest you make a decision, it sounds like you want to stay M. I would end the A and reinvest in your M, go to IC and to a MC. You have a long road ahead of you.

 

Good luck!

 

I do have to say that having spent time with someone who 'couldn't choose' for some while (for numerous reasons) you DO sound as if your marriage is the right (or 'least wrong'??) path for you.

 

I wish you much luck.

[Silly_Girl]

You are speaking from your own experience, which is fine, but this also means that you cannot be objective.

 

The OP can end the other relationship and handle the guilt herself, rather than burdening her husband. I say this because many who confess affairs, only do so the ease their own conscience, not because they want their partner to make an informed choice.

 

I don't think that's the ONLY reason. I have confessed to something previously, purely because I had sincerely and honestly promised if Action X happened, I WOULD tell my partner. It was pre-agreed.

 

But I do agree that most confessions can be veiwed as selfish, not selfless, even though I hate the concept of this being true.

[michelangelo]

How about nobody?

 

Your confusion is destructive and toxic to not only your husband, but to yourself as well. Impact on OM? hardly matters.

 

You owe the truth of your life to both yourself and your husband.

 

Why? At the very least he has a right to know what STDs he may be at risk for contracting. He also has a right to decide for himself if he wants you anymore or not. Your decision to cheat is a selfish act and a deceptive act. Continuing to cheat after knowing how much pain you are inflicting turns from a bad set of behaviors to a malicious willful inflicting of pain on both yourself and your husband.

 

In order of preference, here are/were your options in your decionsmaking process in descending order of preference and honor:

 

1. Love your husband, stay true to your marriage vows. Never cheat.

 

2. Love your husband, find out you are attracted to someone else. Realizing this, limit your contact, refocus your attentions on your husband. never cheat.

 

3. Discover you are losing your love for your husband. Cheat. Attempt to repair it with the help of MC. Never cheat again.

 

3. Discover you are losing your love for your husband. Deceive him, cheat, blame him for it. Start to feel guilty about it. Decide your personal suffering is enough, why let him pile onto your pain? Decide that he being exposed to STDs, not being free to pursue whatever life he wants is the price he pays for your "need" to screw someone else and stay married to him. Oh, and convince yourself that it is your love for him that makes you stay with your husband while banging someone else. Decide also that what you are doing with the OM is not so coarse, it is "love."

 

Decide also that because it is "love" you won't need to protect yourself or your husband from STDs because your OM would not even consider exposing you to STDs. I mean, he loves you, right?

[BlackLovely]

This? After discrediting Owl's opinion because, based on his experiences, he "can't be objective"?

 

That's rich.

Since I have not volunteered my experiences, they cannot truly be discredited. Owl, however, told us what his perspective is based on. Make sense?

[wheelwright]

I'm not sure if this it the right place to post this but I just want to tell anyone who is thinking about having an affair to really consider the consequences. I'm not talking about the possibility of your spouse finding out or the possibilitiy of ruining your marriage, I'm talking about the possibility of falling in love with someone you can't have. I've read other posts here and some people claim that you can't love two people at the same time, but I am living proof that you can. I struggle everyday with the decision that I have made. I was going through a rough time in my marriage and decided to turn to another man. I had no idea I'd fall in love with this man, and should have known better. My H started taking steps to make our marriage better, and I've started loving him even more as well. What's left is a mess of a woman who is so torn. Everytime I think of leaving OM or OM and I talk about stopping, my heart breaks into a million pieces, but everytime I think of not being with my H, the same thing happens. It's a horrible place to be. I hurt everyday because I make such a stupid choice. I can hardly enjoy the little time I get with OM because I know it will never be more. I can hardly enjoy time with my H because I know I'm doing him wrong and that I'm not the woman he thinks I am. I am an adult and I am ashamed that I made the choice that I did, but it's not fun. I don't enjoy my cake and eat it too without a whole lot of tears and heartache that come with it. I guess my advice is if your marriage is worth fighting for, don't give up and turn to someone else. Even if you're lonely, give your H or W a chance first. Don't try to make things better or more tolerable by turning away. Sure, I have good days. There are days when I can juggle these two men and things seem ok, but the bottom line is I have to lay my head down and night thinking about this mess and wake up in the morning thinking about it. I wish I could just leave OM and love my H only. I believe I can do that one day, but I feel so weak and broken. I keep waiting until I'm stronger but I don't know if that will ever come. I have already suffered many of the consequences of my actions. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I have nothing but sympathy for others going through this. I never thought I'd be the kind of person to be in this situation. I never thought I could love another man like I do my H. Sometimes I wonder if I really do love him that much or if I'm clouded by the strong emotional and sexual relationship. OM and I have been together for 4 months. We both fell in love fast. I've been married 12 years. Again, it is thrilling at first and if you meet someone, it's very hard to think about the consequences. The thrill is not worth the pain. I feel burdened and hurt and unhappy. I feel lost and I don't know what to do or how to handle it anymore. This kind of pain is worse than anything I've ever gone through.

 

Friendly advice - write in paragraphs

 

I guess you will get a lot of NC with AP advice. And in all honesty, it's that or throw your M to the wind - which you are obviously considering by having an A.

 

The way to peace of mind is courage.

[BlackLovely]

You stated you haven't been a WS so why would you give a damn what the reason why a WS would tell a BS. I know one person too many who has gotten an STD to give a damn if they were told they were cheated on out of revenge or pity. As long as they know and can protect themselves.

 

I love the implication that just because I can see a different perspective, it means I'm a cheater. I give a damn because there are many viewpoints to the same issue. I'm glad that my experiences have not made me singleminded. I'm sorry to hear that your loved ones have contracted STD's.

[bentnotbroken]

Friendly advice - write in paragraphs

 

I guess you will get a lot of NC with AP advice. And in all honesty, it's that or throw your M to the wind - which you are obviously considering by having an A.

The way to peace of mind is courage.

 

 

It certainly is. No matter the final outcome...it takes courage to give everyone the same choices as you have.

[bentnotbroken]

I love the implication that just because I can see a different perspective, it means I'm a cheater. I give a damn because there are many viewpoints to the same issue. I'm glad that my experiences have not made me singleminded. I'm sorry to hear that your loved ones have contracted STD's.

 

 

Single minded in having the right to decide if one should expose themselves to STD's...you betcha. And no I didn't imply anything, I think I said it straight out.

[jthorne]

BL, may I respectfully inquire why you are trying to direct the responses on this particular thread? I recently commented on a thread about being upset about OP's who ask a question, but get angry at the responses. This seems a similar situation but in reverse.

 

It's an open forum. As long as posts conform to community guidelines, they are allowed. Judgments and all. I'm just confused because your posts on this thread have been more about arguing with fellow posters than helping the OP.

 

We're all here to lend perspective. No one's perspective should be slighted over the other.

 

Sorry for the tj, OP. Maybe even this post will be of value to you.

[BlackLovely]

ya, but the people telling her to take the cowards way out and not tell her husband don't care what you want as a betrayed husband.

 

the cheaters on here that side with her don't care what their victims want.

 

So if I can sympathize with say, a drug addict, I must be a crackhead? Do you hear yourself when you talk? Please introduce me to this man I'm boning on the side! You do know I've only been married two weeks,right? I feel bad for BS, but I don't think that being betrayed is an excuse for ridiculous zealotry.

[datura_noir]

I wish I could be in that place of having two men vying for my love. You must feel like Zara in Dr. Zhivago did...

 

Does it boost your self-esteem just a tiny bit?? Please be honest

 

What do you want the outcome of this situation to be?

 

If you could do anything differently, what would you do??

 

Have you ever been or lived alone without male companionship? Why or why not?

 

What do you think are the OM's strengths? Your H's strengths?

 

How would you apply what you know now to any future relationship, be it

with your H, OM or a diferent partner?

[porter218]

Single minded in having the right to decide if one should expose themselves to STD's...you betcha. And no I didn't imply anything, I think I said it straight out.

 

I ditto this as a BS who caught chlamydia from her WH who said to me "I didn't want to hurt you, thats why I didn't tell you"...well....not telling me gave me an std and possibly put my son at serious risk...and also I suspect the reason for my early delivery of him. See, I was pregnant...two innocent people were put at risk by his decision to not tell me.

[BlackLovely]

BL, may I respectfully inquire why you are trying to direct the responses on this particular thread? I recently commented on a thread about being upset about OP's who ask a question, but get angry at the responses. This seems a similar situation but in reverse.

 

It's an open forum. As long as posts conform to community guidelines, they are allowed. Judgments and all. I'm just confused because your posts on this thread have been more about arguing with fellow posters than helping the OP.

 

We're all here to lend perspective. No one's perspective should be slighted over the other.

 

Sorry for the tj, OP. Maybe even this post will be of value to you.

 

If you read the whole thread, you would know that I DID post a very diplomatic and uplifting response to the OP. Nice try, baby! Since is an open forum, I have just as much right as anyone else to say what I choose, just as others can, regardless of who takes an issue with what is said. Thank you for reminding me that I am indeed posting on AN OPEN FORUM. There is nothing respectful, about implying that I should keep quiet when others respond to my posts. I can't even defend myself now? LOL How helpful do you think calling the OP names is, darling? All I'm reading is wounded people taking shots at the OP.

[SidLyon]

If you read the whole thread, you would know that I DID post a very diplomatic and uplifting response to the OP. Nice try, baby! Since is an open forum, I have just as much right as anyone else to say what I choose, just as others can, regardless of who takes an issue with what is said. Thank you for reminding me that I am indeed posting on AN OPEN FORUM. There is nothing respectful, about implying that I should keep quiet when others respond to my posts. I can't even defend myself now? LOL How helpful do you think calling the OP names is, darling? All I'm reading is wounded people taking shots at the OP.

 

Hmm your very first post in this thread said "Pay no attention to the rude and judgemental comments. This is supposed to be a place to get HELP, not kicked in the face with your actions."

 

Yet there are no posts before yours that are rude or kick anybody in the face.

 

Looks to me that you came onto this thread with "fighting words" and now for some reason it's become all about you. You seem completely oblivious that most of your posts are highly judgmental.

 

Of course you are allowed to post your opinions and judgments on this forum - you do it all the time. But the rest of us who may not agree with you can do likewise.

 

Please keep posting because different perspectives are what we need.

[jthorne]

Looks like the OP bailed on the thread. I hope she found at least something of value amongst the bickering.

[Steadfast]

 

Looks like the OP bailed on the thread. I hope she found at least something of value amongst the bickering.

 

 

Like the other posts made by cheating wives, this one took off like a bullet. For those of us who've been on here awhile, the response was "Oh boy..."

 

Once upon a time, I fell into the trap of responding to LS responders, instead of the OP...with predictable results. When was the last time anyone changed anyone's mind on here? When have you ever read "Gosh, you're right. I'm sorry" or "Wow! Great point...I never thought of that!"

 

But (*sigh*) I must respond to this...

 

 

i had an affair. And i've said this to my husband, and i've said it in therapy. I would much rather have had my husband cheat on me (i have been cheated on before and know it is very painful) than have to have dealt with the emotional abuse, and abandonment that he put me through. If i had to pick one pain i would pick him having had an affair. Basically what i am saying is that there are other vows in marriage that when broken are just as painful. I hate it when BS's act as though the WS has know idea what pain is. Give me a break. You can read my other post to her my story.

 

 

Said the thief to the victim while holding a gun to their head: "You have no idea how bad doing this to you feels! How dare you presume that your pain and fear is greater than mine! I'd much rather it was you holding me up!"

 

News flash; just about everyone here on LS knows the cheater gets the short end of the stick. But please don't compare your decisions and the resulting pain to those who were victimized. Translation: Most BS's didn't ask for what they got. Good god...is this what the thinking has come to?

 

 

The OP can end the other relationship and handle the guilt herself, rather than burdening her husband. I say this because many who confess affairs, only do so the ease their own conscience, not because they want their partner to make an informed choice.

 

 

This is actually one of the most insightful things I've read here yet. Not surprisingly (and ironically) I can relate to it...from personal experience.

 

OP: Tell your husband what you've done and why, then let him decide what HE wants to do. You have violated your marriage vows, so in effect the marriage is already over. Your actions have nullified it. If possible, make this decision together, but if he insists you leave the OM and you waffle...then you're making a bad situation worse. Honestly, my prediction is you'll end up alone. If he's remained faithful and kind to you, your husband deserves better. As for the OM, he'll never completely trust you because he knows you're capable of cheating, and you'll (justifiably) feel the same way about him. Factor in you cheated on a faithful man...the father of your children. How much of a stretch is it to cheat on a cheater?

 

As for your husband, he'll always wonder. Personally, I could not (and did not) deal with that for the rest of my life. He may feel the same way. You are very confused and have much to learn about what real love is. Time to get to the bottom of your problems. See what's left of your life after that.

[alexandria35]

Looks like the OP bailed on the thread. I hope she found at least something of value amongst the bickering.

 

Well she didn't actually ask for any advice or opinions. I guess she just wanted to share with us her deep pain of cheating on her husband of 12 years and to warn all of us not to do the same lest we find ourselves in her terrible position of suffering.

 

Thanks for your concern OP