Not dealing well

July 12, 2013

I think it would be easier to be a non-remorseful WS. Thinks like self hatred wouldn't exsist. I could have just ended the A and kept my mouth shut. But I wanted my husband to have the truth. I had a mental breakdown and I didn't want him to think it was his fault. His forgiveness has been freely given. The only thing he asked was that I get std tested. If I could just get past what I did life would go on. But I can't.

I can't live with the knowledge that I cheated on my husband. In a very disgusting way. I chatted with xMM while laying next to my H in bed. I had a threesome with him and his W while my H was passed out in the same house. I let xMM finger me while H was sleeping above me on bunkbeds. I told my BS all of this and as I told him (and even write it now) I feel like vomiting. I purposefuly got myself drunk around xMM so that I wouldn't have inhibitions.

So as you can see I, who had only ever even kissed one man (we met and married mid twenties), cannot go on with this.

I am in therapy, and yet I still can barely go out. I have never had social anxiety before but i have had a couple panic attacks while out and rushed home to hide. As i answer questions on here I think that is why I want his W to forgive me. But she can't because to forgive me would be her accepting her Husband did more than get taken advantage of while drunk (he told me that, gag)

I feel I need to leave my H so he doesn't hae to deal with the broken person i made myself. Who would think that R would be harder for me?

July 12, 2013

I think that you have an amazingly forgiving husband. Did you do these things to deliberately humiliate your husband or were you experimenting? Surely you must have known that these actions of yours would crush your husband but I commend you for being honest with him. What was his reaction when you told him the truth?

I can only imagine that there must have been underlining issues that caused you to do this. It also seems to me that your actions were so over the top and always while your husband was present in some form then deep down you wanted to be caught by your husband. If this is not the case then you were getting off on humiliating and disrespecting your husband in such a horrible way.

It is good that you are seeking therapy. Do you love your husband really? Down deep do you really want the marriage to end?

July 12, 2013

My BH wants me to give it more time. We have kids and when I tell him he could find a better W he tells me that I can be a better wife. That we can be a stronger family despite my actions. I don't deserve him. I think I'd rather him yell at me, take our kids and kick me to the curb. That is what I deserve.

July 12, 2013

You have been blessed with a husband that loves you very much. I looking for your answers to the questions I posed in my previous post.

July 12, 2013

My BH wants me to give it more time. We have kids and when I tell him he could find a better W he tells me that I can be a better wife. That we can be a stronger family despite my actions. I don't deserve him. I think I'd rather him yell at me, take our kids and kick me to the curb. That is what I deserve.

I think your husband deserve a wife that tries to right her wrongs, not run away from them.

Other than when in therapy, stop focusing on you. Focus on your husband, marriage, and kids.

July 12, 2013

As you can see by your past threads on this subject, LS'ers can be pretty turned off by your story. A big part of it is because you, the WW, should have to work very, very hard to repair the damage and earn back trust and maybe even some level of forgiveness. But you seem to be getting a pass from your BH. When we read how easily and quickly he "forgave" you it just doesn't feel right. Maybe he can see you twisting in such agony and figures your own mind will do a better job punishing you than anything he can do. Maybe he hates you and you simply don't mean enough to him to be upset. Or maybe he considers your marriage to be "open" and he's screwing anything with a skirt so doesn't feel entitled to be angry with you. Whatever the reason, he doesn't seem to care or else he is terrified of conflict and is just stuffing his emotions away in an attempt to heal. After all, time heals all wounds - right? Well, we all know it doesn't work and if this is what he is doing then just wait a while; he will explode and you'll find out how he really feels about your cheating.

You are not going to get absolution here so what are you looking for? You are wracked with guilt and in therapy. Keep working on your rationalizations for being a cheater and I'm sure you'll find peace by believing your own bullsh*t someday.

Edited July 12, 2013 by drifter777

July 12, 2013

Coolit I would have given anything for my WH to feel the way you do, but it took him 16 months to get to that point. I suffered through many Ddays.

I think it is great that you realize the amount of devastation an A causes, not only to the BS but to the WS as well. You will eventually have to forgive yourself, but the fact that you had an A will never go away for you or for your BS, that is the most devastating part of A's for a marriage. Really if you think about it A's are designed to end M's.

With lots of introspection on your part in therapy and making yourself a healthier person, you will come to accept what's happened and hopefully not go down that road again. A healthier you will be able to help your BS in the ways that he needs you right now in order to heal.

Best of luck to you and your BS

July 12, 2013

Coolist, after my A several years ago, I went into a depression and dragged my wrongs around with me wearing the biggest neon sign scarlet A I could find. At first it was remorse.

Then it became something else.

I liken it to an experience I had in college. I kind of played around one semester and didn't always make it to an 8:00 am class. The first test was given, and I made a D. What I WANTED to do was drop it and start over the next semester with a clean slate. BUT in order to start taking my higher level content classes, this core one had to be out of the way. So I dug in, rolled up my sleeves, never missed another class no matter how sleepy I was, and knew that every A I made for the rest of the semester was, in part, just going to pull up that D a bit. I ended up with a B in the class.

I wanted to drop it because working myself out of the D was harder than just deleting and hitting reset.

I ended up, at my husband's request, going to a very good counselor who had a healthy balance between taking responsibility for one's wrong and not being identified and branded as foul damaged goods for the rest of forever. He advised me to treat the forgiveness like I gift I could live to be worth of even if I wasn't "worthy" in my own mind yet. He also told me to choose input carefully. In other words, my...um...couple of "pious" friends who felt their job was to make sure I didn't forget how awful I was (as if any normal person with a conscience could forget) had to go. I was already giving myself enough "jane is unredeemable crap" input; I didn't need anymore.

This may sound harsh, but after a time, wallowing in our self-loathing is almost as selfish as the A because we are not spending that energy being the spouse our BS deserves.

July 12, 2013

This may sound harsh, but after a time, wallowing in our self-loathing is almost as selfish as the A because we are not spending that energy being the spouse our BS deserves.

I was going to say something very similar to this. There's a difference between remorse and wallowing in your own guilt.

July 12, 2013

Negative emotions can be an impetus for change or a warning:

guilt = look and see what I am doing wrong

pain = what hurts?

BUT

After a time they can become shields and/or reasons NOT to do personal work. A WS who remains prostrate underneath the weight of what they "did," meaning it is something they are no longer doing, may be unconsciously doing so after a time in order to avoid the really painful work of making things right/changing/working through the fallout.

Just as someone who feeds and nurtures anger and bitterness and blame, after a time, may be doing it so as not to have to look into a mirror of their own.

If you act honorable and valuable and with integrity regardless of how "worthy" you feel...every day, all the time...then I would bet you will begin to feel a lot less terrible.

July 12, 2013

I think that you have an amazingly forgiving husband. Did you do these things to deliberately humiliate your husband or were you experimenting? Surely you must have known that these actions of yours would crush your husband but I commend you for being honest with him. What was his reaction when you told him the truth?

I can only imagine that there must have been underlining issues that caused you to do this. It also seems to me that your actions were so over the top and always while your husband was present in some form then deep down you wanted to be caught by your husband. If this is not the case then you were getting off on humiliating and disrespecting your husband in such a horrible way.

It is good that you are seeking therapy. Do you love your husband really? Down deep do you really want the marriage to end?

I was experimenting. In my mind he was never going to know. I chose to believe what he doesn't know won't hurt him. The thing is, it was hurting him as the effects of my actions were catching up with us. And I was hurting myself. I had never had casual sex in my life and I was stupid to think I could. And even more messed up to try.

When I told my husband he held me. I told him everything I could think of and knew myself from start to finish. I wanted no doubt in his mind that I was telling him the truth.

I was very depressed after the birth of our second child. My shrink told me my A was directly due to me not dealing with that depression in a healthy and acceptable way. On top of that H and I were not having sex very often anymore. This in no way justifies what I did but it is why in part I behaved completely out of character.

I don't think I wanted to be caught. But when xMM initiated I almost always responded. There were a few times when I didn't because I felt it was too risky.

I know I love my husband. I miss him during the day. He is who I want to be with. I had tried to be a cake eater. And now we are paying for it.

July 12, 2013

Jane, thank you, I have worried that too. Being in a dark place is hard on everyone and it can have such a snowball effect. It causes guilt and feelings of inadequecy. That just makes things darker.

So knowing what I have to do and having the strength to do it are two different things.

But it has been a short time. I shouldn't let myself lose hope yet.

July 12, 2013

...
When I told my husband he held me. I told him everything I could think of and knew myself from start to finish. I wanted no doubt in his mind that I was telling him the truth.
...

This is the power of honesty. I treated my WW similarly when she confessed. If you wonder how he can forgive you, this is why. You have shown that you are capable of telling the truth. Just in that act you begin rebuilding trust. When I found out my WW had been lying repeatedly about the scope of her A...I turned into a raving, cursing, screaming lunatic who refused to come home. I created the bank account I now use as my primary that night. Truth rebuilds trust, lies destroy it. It's pretty simple. If you keep being honest you'll continue to be amazed with the results.

July 12, 2013

I was very depressed after the birth of our second child. My shrink told me my A was directly due to me not dealing with that depression in a healthy and acceptable way. On top of that H and I were not having sex very often anymore. This in no way justifies what I did but it is why in part I behaved completely out of character.

I don't think I wanted to be caught. But when xMM initiated I almost always responded. There were a few times when I didn't because I felt it was too risky.

I know I love my husband. I miss him during the day. He is who I want to be with. I had tried to be a cake eater. And now we are paying for it.

Awesome work! You're grabbing on to the rationalizations already - pretty soon it will be all your husbands fault and you can reclaim the moral high-ground and your depression will melt away.

Oh - and congratulations finding a shrink who is an idiot. Are you sure he/she actually gave you a pass like this? If so you are lucky to find a counselor as "understanding" as your BH. With all of this evidence in your favor, why do continue to agonize about your affair? You are in the clear now, right?

July 12, 2013

Am I getting something wrong, in a previous post you said you told other betrayed spouse about your affair with her husband but she didn't believe you? You also say in this post you banged them both in a threesome while your husband was passed out. She already knew you were f**king him, I don't understand. How long were you his affair partner? Were you also banging his wife? Did you betray your husband in your own home? Are you NO CONTACT with these horrible people?

Have you been tested for all STD's, tell your doctor the truth, he needs to know what to test for, some STD's don't even show signs until 6 months after your event. Please do not throw away the gift of reconciliation, take all the time you need to decide the future of your young family. I am concerned that your husband forgave you so quickly, I think he is going through his own shock. When I found out my spouse was another mans dirt, the last thing on my mind was forgiveness. Forget about any kind of marriage counseling until you've dealt with your demons, stick with independent counseling for yourself, why did you give yourself the authority to have an affaire, why did you feel entitled so that you could and why was your family not important enough to you to stop you from self destructing? You need to dig deep to find these answers, your family should be an important enough reason for doing the work. First step, make your husband feel safe staying with you.

July 12, 2013

I like that...

"First step, make your husband feel safe staying with you."

Look, you sound like you're torturing yourself, and maybe you deserved the pain, but to continue suffering it won't help the relationship. If you want to take this second chance, then focus on the R and not your pain. Forgive yourself and focus on making your husband feel good about you both and the M.

Everybody's human - many people make a mistake like yours and feel no remorse; the fact that you do feel it is positive in a way. Some people don't realize the consequences of their actions, or that they have gone outside their own limits of behaviour until they have done something crappy like this and they they go into denial.

I also liked this advice -

"Take the ball and run with it and prove to him that his decision wasn't the wrong one."

July 13, 2013

Awesome work! You're grabbing on to the rationalizations already - pretty soon it will be all your husbands fault and you can reclaim the moral high-ground and your depression will melt away.

Oh - and congratulations finding a shrink who is an idiot. Are you sure he/she actually gave you a pass like this? If so you are lucky to find a counselor as "understanding" as your BH. With all of this evidence in your favor, why do continue to agonize about your affair? You are in the clear now, right?

I agree that there is no justification for an affair and that the WS needs to take responsibility 100% for their choice to cheat. But in the real world there are such things as depression and stress and all sorts of things. They do not justify cheating, but pretending they don't exist and ignoring the fact that they can make us vulnerable isn't very wise.

My husband has diabetes. Sometimes when a person's sugar drops very quickly and becomes very low they can be combative and even violent. If he had a sudden sugar drop while he was angry with me and went loco and beat me.....his diabetes and low sugar would NOT excuse it. Then again....he needs to be aware of his sugar/diabetes and take care of himself.

I think knowing what might make us vulnerable to bad choices is good so that we can take personal responsibility for treating those things and shoring up those weak areas.

July 13, 2013

I think it would be easier to be a non-remorseful WS. Thinks like self hatred wouldn't exsist. I could have just ended the A and kept my mouth shut. But I wanted my husband to have the truth. I had a mental breakdown and I didn't want him to think it was his fault. His forgiveness has been freely given. The only thing he asked was that I get std tested. If I could just get past what I did life would go on. But I can't.

I can't live with the knowledge that I cheated on my husband. In a very disgusting way. I chatted with xMM while laying next to my H in bed. I had a threesome with him and his W while my H was passed out in the same house. I let xMM finger me while H was sleeping above me on bunkbeds. I told my BS all of this and as I told him (and even write it now) I feel like vomiting. I purposefuly got myself drunk around xMM so that I wouldn't have inhibitions.

So as you can see I, who had only ever even kissed one man (we met and married mid twenties), cannot go on with this.

I am in therapy, and yet I still can barely go out. I have never had social anxiety before but i have had a couple panic attacks while out and rushed home to hide. As i answer questions on here I think that is why I want his W to forgive me. But she can't because to forgive me would be her accepting her Husband did more than get taken advantage of while drunk (he told me that, gag)

I feel I need to leave my H so he doesn't hae to deal with the broken person i made myself. Who would think that R would be harder for me?

Glad you're in therapy. Baby steps, one day at a time.

I hope soon you can forgive yourself and begin to fix what is broken inside of you. Once that happens, you'll feel better and more confident to work on your marriage and reconnect with your husband.

He loves you and obviously thinks you're worth fighting for. Maybe you need to believe that and have faith.

July 13, 2013

I think that every morning when you wake up, first thing drop your husband's pajama bottoms and kiss his ass. You are the luckiest person that I know because either your husband is so completely, hopelessly in love with you or the dumbest man walking the face of the earth. Most men would have thrown you out in the street with the clothes on your back. It's bad enough you had an affair but then your having a threesome with some schmuck of a man and his bimbo wife while your husband is in the other room sleeping is flat out the lowest of the low. I would like to wonder what you see when you look in the mirror and see that person staring back at you.

July 13, 2013

I agree that there is no justification for an affair and that the WS needs to take responsibility 100% for their choice to cheat. But in the real world there are such things as depression and stress and all sorts of things. They do not justify cheating, but pretending they don't exist and ignoring the fact that they can make us vulnerable isn't very wise.

My husband has diabetes. Sometimes when a person's sugar drops very quickly and becomes very low they can be combative and even violent. If he had a sudden sugar drop while he was angry with me and went loco and beat me.....his diabetes and low sugar would NOT excuse it. Then again....he needs to be aware of his sugar/diabetes and take care of himself.

I think knowing what might make us vulnerable to bad choices is good so that we can take personal responsibility for treating those things and shoring up those weak areas.

What do depression, anxiety, and diabetes have to do with cheating?

July 13, 2013

Am I getting something wrong, in a previous post you said you told other betrayed spouse about your affair with her husband but she didn't believe you? You also say in this post you banged them both in a threesome while your husband was passed out. She already knew you were f**king him, I don't understand.
She believed we only did things with her present. We did it twice.
How long were you his affair partner?
Three months or so. The majority of it was talking dirty.
Were you also banging his wife?
No, he had sex with us we did not have sex with each other
Did you betray your husband in your own home?
No
Are you NO CONTACT with these horrible people?
Yes except that we have some mutual friends. I have avoided those but my H feels that he has no reason to and has "marked his territory" as such. Let them know he will not give up friends to avoid them. He just doesn't acknowledge their existence.

Have you been tested for all STD's, tell your doctor the truth, he needs to know what to test for, some STD's don't even show signs until 6 months after your event.
i told my doctor. It was probably the most humiliating experience of my life
Please do not throw away the gift of reconciliation, take all the time you need to decide the future of your young family. I am concerned that your husband forgave you so quickly, I think he is going through his own shock. When I found out my spouse was another mans dirt, the last thing on my mind was forgiveness. Forget about any kind of marriage counseling until you've dealt with your demons, stick with independent counseling for yourself, why did you give yourself the authority to have an affaire, why did you feel entitled so that you could and why was your family not important enough to you to stop you from self destructing? You need to dig deep to find these answers, your family should be an important enough reason for doing the work. First step, make your husband feel safe staying with you.

The depression thing was not an excuse as some seem to think. But it was a factor. When suffering from it many people make selfish, destructive choices. Mine was to be seduced by another man. To let him flatter and flirt and to knowlingly play with fire. Some people become alchohalics some people do drugs. Without facing these things i cannot get better or guard against future issues.

July 13, 2013

What do depression, anxiety, and diabetes have to do with cheating?

Really?

You don't see that someone who is struggling with clinical depression needs to treat it and be even more aware of their boundaries? I'm not talking justifications here. I'm talking treating and recognizing the things that make us vulnerable.

There is NEVER an excuse to cheat, and the choice to deal with any problem by cheating is 100% the responsibility of the cheater.

But someone who actually believes that there is nothing about the outside world that can make us more vulnerable, then they have their heads in the sand.

July 13, 2013

In my experience, someone that has an affair is either extremely conflict-avoidant, has an excessive need for external validation, or has an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Sometimes there is a combination. To me, these are the reasons behind affairs. Something about the person is broken. Othersise they wouldn't make such illogical, unethical, and destructive choices that violate their own standards.

In my view, understanding your person "why" is the single most critical factor in recovery and reconciliation (provided that you've already mastered the basics of honesty, transparency, and so forth). If you undertand why you had this affair, you'll be better equipped to avoid the use of that coping mechanism in the future and your H will feel more confident that he won't suffer a repeat performance.

Wallowing in guilt does nothing to accomplish this.

July 13, 2013

I also wanted to add that your husband deserves a marriage after all of this. Leaving him is just running from your problems and does him yet another disservice. My wife chose that route. She should have found the courage to face her problems. Instead, she ran from them and left me in the dust. God only knows if she actually learned anything from the experience except to dump her vows altogether after she had already betrayed them. Quit talking about leaving your husband. Your vows were for life and he deserves for you to begin keeping them.

July 13, 2013

Really?

You don't see that someone who is struggling with clinical depression needs to treat it and be even more aware of their boundaries? I'm not talking justifications here. I'm talking treating and recognizing the things that make us vulnerable.

Depression, clinical or otherwise, has nothing to do with the decision to cheat. The thing that makes a woman vulnerable to cheating is the need to feel desired, pursued, charmed, and laid. It's fun and it feels good. Stop the constant rationalizations.

There is NEVER an excuse to cheat, and the choice to deal with any problem by cheating is 100% the responsibility of the cheater.
But someone who actually believes that there is nothing about the outside world that can make us more vulnerable, then they have their heads in the sand.

Ok, I'll say it. I believe there is nothing about the outside world that can make us more vulnerable to cheating. The temptation to have a sexual encounter/relationship with someone other than our spouse is there for all of us. The ones that give in to the temptation are selfish, hurtful, self-entitled pricks. No one made you do it - it was your choice to cheat. If you two WW's are truly remorseful and want to rebuild your marriage the first thing you have to do is stop rationalizing and own your decision to cheat.

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