Married to a caring husband and having an affair ..?

[findingnemo]

Radhika,

 

I don't think you are in love with your H and don't realize it. You are feeling guilty because he loves you and you are scared of the implications of leaving him based on your cultural background. It must be scary because you are going against your culture.

 

However, you live in America, the land of the free, the brave, etc. You have only one life. Live it. You have a greencard, are getting your PhD, take your chance now. You're already out of the door, don't let fear make you go backwards.

 

Stay here and you will get support.

[weedsandposies]

Radhika- Can't help but feel you used your husband from the beginning... to come to the U.S., to get an education, etc. You had time to involve yourself in another relationship so he must be trusting of you. Why now? Because you're all set with a job and a new man?

 

No one should have to stay where they don't want to be but I think you should be honest with yourself and your husband.

[aliveagain]

Girl, this is your mess and no one is going to give you the magic answer to fix it. I think you have been letting other people fix your mess's all your life. Had you divorced your husband instead of starting an affair all the people you love wouldn't be in so much hurt. You caused your family in the foreign country untold hardship and shame, they can't just walk away from their village. You have humiliated your husband and shamed his family. You now have your lovers family involved, do they know their son is the reason for you leaving your husband? For a 30 year old educated woman your not acting very smart. Put the breaks on girl, go get some independent counseling before you do more damage. Never start a new relationship until you are finished with the one your in, that includes alone time so you can assess what it is that went wrong and don't make the same mistake again. How do you know your not using your lover as your KISA (Knight In Shinning Armor) to rescue you from your marriage? What makes you think this relationship will succeed if you haven't dealt with all the underlying problems that are still there? Take the time and do it right.

Edited August 2, 2013 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[MinorityOne]

To those wonderful posters who conjectured that the OP was right to cheat since this was an arranged marriage: You are pathetic

 

Just because the OP had an arranged marriage, you justify her cheating?

 

What does love mean in the West anyway? You say that you fall in love and get married. But you also give the "I love you but I am not in love with you" for adultery and divorce. Your WSs use the same word "love" for the feelings they have in an affair. What does love mean then??

 

In India love means an entirely different thing. We do not differentiate between "loving someone" and "being in love". For us love has an entirely different connotation from yours. We believe in the companionate love as the basis for marriage. The kind of love where you love a person for what s/he does, who s/he is, her kindness, her integrity. If a person has admirable qualities then that person deserves love and is marriage material. Even in the so-called love-marriages that the OP says that happen in India we do not see how the guy/girl makes you feel. We instead see what we feel about them and love them for that. Romantic love never had a basis in our marriage. We consider that as inferior to companionate love and if the OP herself married someone in India by her own choice she would have married based on the factors I listed and not for passion/lust.

 

Quite surprising that you are ready to agree that the OP must never have loved her husband since it was an arranged marriage. But you tend to overlook the fact that she mentions that she was comfortable initially with the marriage. Isn't that what every WS tells on loveshack or any other infidelity forums? That the WS were only comfortable but never actually loved their BS? When a white WS tells you that, that counts as "rewriting marital history". But when an Indian WS tells you that, then s/he becomes a poor victim of India's oppressive culture. Hooray for double standards.

 

Get this straight. I read the OP's husband's thread elsewhere (and followed the story to here). He mentions that they were having a happy life and the OP never complained about the marriage until D-day. That the OP was always comfortable with the marriage. And here we see that the OP even mentioning that he had been the perfect husband. The husband says all was well until 2 years ago(his version and her version elsewhere says they were married for 7 years - not 5) and that she could not have faked the love that she had shown until then. Does it have an uncanny resemblance to other BS posts here?

 

If the OP cannot stay in a marriage where there is loads of companionate love and which she herself admits that she was comfortable with once, I do not think she will be happier in any marriage. After all don't you folks always say passion waxes and wanes but love grows forever. What happened now? Is that advice only reserved for posters from the west?

 

Understand a few things. The modern day arranged marriage in India is based on companionate love. Two people meet. They assess each other for tangible qualities like character, temperament, religious views, cultural views, social views, views about family and opposite gender, etc. besides the other factors like in-laws (yes..that is an important factor most of us look into), financial well-being, possible vices, etc. This OP had one of these modern arranged marriages where there was a long courtship where she had reasonable time to assess such things and she said ok on the basis of that.

 

To those who call this a gamble - It is only a gamble when you want to see if a romantic affection can develop or not. Like I said already, romantic passion is considered inferior to companionate love in the Indian context and so it is not a gamble if the participants are correct with the assessment. In the OP's case, she was correct, and had a good marriage until she had an affair after which she re-wrote the marital history. And here you come empathise with her? What about empathy for the BS who got screwed? Do you have any idea how hard it is for a divorcee to re-marry in India? Do you have any idea how some of the Indian guys/girls like the OPs husband refuse to remarry since they believe in "one love for life"? And what was his mistake even? Still believing in the old ideals of love and marriage and being a dutiful husband in a marriage that he made sacrifices for (as the OP herself says)?

 

If you could not make any culturally sensitive advice you better have given the usual advice that you give for other WS. You did not have to paint the OP as a victim.

 

Once again...You are pathetic.

Edited August 4, 2013 by MinorityOne

[Realist3]

I'm not going to call anyone pathetic, but love to me means I GET TO CHOOSE who I fall in love with.

[MinorityOne]

Well....read her post and mine once again...She CHOSE within a framework. She LOVED. And then she CHEATED. She had certain doubts before her marriage. But she went ahead and it worked out well...After the affair she rewrites marital history.

[mspractical]

Hi Radhika, As someone very familiar with the culture from which you come and as someone who has lived in that culture all my life, I have a few points to make.

 

"Arranged marriages" as they are popularly (or should I say notoriously) known receive a lot of flak all the world over. I do not blame anyone. I feel equally shocked when I think of marriages of the past where the man and woman met each other for the first time after marriage. Things have now come a long way since then and it would be more appropriate to call what happens today "assisted" marriages. It helps young people come across more people than they would in the normal course of life and important considerations such as family backgrounds, the character of the man/woman, religious faith, cultural background etc. are taken into account. This paves the way (or at least should) for more successful marriages if the young people in question would go about more sensibly. No one can be FORCED to marry anyone they do not wish to, least of all educated young people of today.

 

He is a very honest caring person. Loves me to death and he has encouraged me to pursue higher studies and he has sacrificed so many things for me over the years.

 

Just go to a couple of other forums for Indian women and read about the kind of marriages in which they live – yes, even ones who have had so-called “love marriages”. So many of them undergo mindless physical violence, agony, and are often trapped in such loveless marriages. Add endless in-law problems and being remote controlled by them across the continents. You admit to having a very loving, considerate husband and I would say you have been extremely lucky. In a culture where married women scarcely get support from their in-laws/husbands to make individual progress, you, lady, have been particularly fortunate.

 

The only thing I is that i never loved him and never had a passion for him.

 

Would be curious to know how you define the word "love". Did you care for him? Did you never have any tender feelings for him? Did you never see the child in him? Did you never appreciate the things he did for you? Did you never respect him or admire him for himself or his achievements? You say you do not feel physically attracted towards him. I do not deny that this has some importance in married life. But there is a lot more that goes into making a long-lasting marriage. Physical attraction often wears off after a while. What develops is a mature, spiritual bond of love and caring, of affection. It is love on a different level altogether. What you want and what you seek is your outlook and I am nobody to pass a judgment on that.

 

Coz of the cultural dilemma I just went along in this marriage and was comfortable too.

 

This sounds a bit confusing and self-contradictory after what you said in the previous statement. Besides I cannot accept that you got married because of cultural dilemma. Even in this country, you could have exercised your veto power and refused to marry the guy if you felt you did not feel physically attracted towards him and if you rated it highly in your criteria for marriage. I find it hard to accept naivety as an excuse either - if you were so young and naive, you should have taken some more years to get married so you had time to form your own opinions and mature mentally.

 

5 years ago I met a guy at my school and we became best friends. I used to share all my feelings with him and he was very caring and a handsome guy.

Never knew when this friendship turned into love for each other and last year we started having physical contact with each other and continued for a year.

 

Nothing wrong with being friends and nothing abnormal in feeling attracted either. But in the light of what you have said later on in your post, how come you did not think of what you were doing earlier? If you did not have courage to stand up and refuse to marry this man, where did you find the courage to cheat on him? And if you really felt guilty doing what were, why did you do it?

 

My husband is heart broken with this news and I am feeling guilty and I feel like I used him.

 

You are absolutely right there.

 

Now I am graduating I am leaving him, he is devastated. I moved out 2 days ago but I could not see my husband cry and sad like this. Am scared that he would do something to himself and I do care about him, just not in love.

 

You can't have the cake and eat it too. If you have decided to walk out on him and get on with your life the way you think you want to live it, then you can't expect to do that with him waving you a cheery good bye.

 

He feels so betrayed

 

I'm sure you would feel the same in his place.

 

and I am not sure if I can live with this guilt for the rest of my life..... I am confused if I love my husband and don't see it or it is just the attachment from the past 5 years and the guilt that i cheated on him is making me feel like this..

 

It sounds like you do love and care for your husband but are getting mixed up with notions of "romantic" love. Real life is very different from M&B stories. 5 years is not a short time and the "attachment" developed in this time is love of a more lasting kind. Physical love is all fine as long as it lasts. However, it is not always permanent and does mature into love of a more spiritual and mature kind at some point of time. That is what is more important if you are looking for a long-lasting marriage and family and kids.

 

As for what you should do now, I guess you have burnt your boats. Even if your husband claims he will forgive you and take you back, I am afraid this story will popping up at various points of time when there are issues in the marriage. I am sure even he won't realize it now, but it would not be surprising if he throws this in your face at some point in time. At that time, even if you have a very genuine grouse against him, neither family – neither his nor yours - is going to believe you or support you. So the only practical way for you from here seems forward.

[Oberfeldwebel]

You married a man that you did not love or desire to marry. I don’t have so much of a problem with arranged marriage, but I am sure you could have said no to the arrangement. For the most part they are just as effective as western culture marriages. I must admit that it took me a 2d chance to get it right. However, you have done wrong and will crush your current husband. The only thing you can do now is do it quickly, the longer you drag this out the harder that it will be for him. Now that you are on your own, finish your education and then look to for future relationships. Don’t be surprised if the current Mr Right, turns out to be Mr Right Now. Stay in contact with your family, in time they will come around. I think that once you finish your education and settle down, they will find some redeeming social value in you again. Actually, I am sure they love you, they are just hurt right now. As for the end of your marriage, it is like taking a band-aid, do it quickly.