soundsfamilar Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 hi everybody, i have been reading these threads for a while now, only registered today. i too am a OW, recently left by a MM. it's been 10 weeks and they have been the hardest i ever experienced. the pain was deeper than anything i ever felt. i managed to go NC 4 weeks ago, beside one "merry christmas" email i sent dec. 24. i am also married, which makes the entire mess even harder. somehow the grieving part is worse when you have to do it in hiding (not too successfully, may i add). my husband found out via reading my emails (i left them open, accidentally) in july, after he was suspicious about my "sadness". he thought it was just over with MM then and there… but it wasn't. now he discovered that it wasn't and is still sticking by me, loves me, etc. in the initial anger, he has threatened to tell MM's wife, which i talked him out of. let's face it: MM went back to his life to make it work, due to his inability to leave (which he pondered, so he said). he can't "jump", he says. although he loves me, so he says. he can't do this anymore. i guess the things i grapple with most are these: 1. although i know some say affairs are "fantasies", this love seemed very real when it was happening. and consequently the love for my husband is right now not there… and i have to admit it wasn't (due to many reasons) when the affair began last year. my question: do you think it can return? 2. how do i get over the still very raw emotions over the break up of the affair? i tell myself all the ****ty things that happened are not worth it. i remind myself of all the ways he let me down after "future-faking". i think of the fact that my "merry christmas" email after going NC (he had previously written he wanted to stay in touch) was answered with a four-days-later email "and a belated merry christmas to you too", and how crappy that felt. yet i often still miss what we had, however pathetic that is, wonder if he thinks of me, etc. 3. my husband still wants to tell MM's wife. should i give up fighting this and let him? 4. does this ever get better?
halfalive Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 Do NOT let him tell her. I repeat: do NOT NOT NOT let him tell her. Your XMM will think that you put him up to it and will blame you forever. I think you would highly regret it.
Author soundsfamilar Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 MM already knew this was a possibility back in july, because it was threatened then. he knows how unpredictable my H can be in that regard. MM was strangely unaffected back then, like he almost hoped for it to happen… weird, i know. i can't stop my H from doing what he feels is necessary, but right now i think he won't, because he wants to make it work. but if he ever does, MM will know it wasn't me, since he always knew how much i fought for that not to happen. he even thanked me for it. and apologized for my "turmoil". i'm just exhausted fighting for protecting him.
Author soundsfamilar Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 but i understand that i am also protecting myself by preventing my H from telling MM's wife.
Realist3 Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 1. although i know some say affairs are "fantasies", this love seemed very real when it was happening. and consequently the love for my husband is right now not there… and i have to admit it wasn't (due to many reasons) when the affair began last year. my question: do you think it can return? Very hard to say as each situation is different. For me probably not, as I found someone that makes me whole more than my wife will ever be able to do. It is not her fault, it is just the way it is. Once you experience that it is very difficult for that old flame for the BS to return. 1
Author soundsfamilar Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 thanks for your reply, realist. i understand… that's what i'm afraid of… deep down, i know it's been lost. the irony: MM thought at times his love for his wife was also not possible to rekindle. it sounds really bad, but he admitted at one point he had fantasized "what if she died?" (of natural causes of course!) and he felt so horrible about these thoughts. i remember thinking how i cannot fathom thinking these kinds of thoughts about someone i truly still love. yet in the end, he apparently loved her enough to stay. it's all totally screwed up… realist, may i ask: is this new person your AP?
whichwayisup Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 If your husband wants to tell, don't stand in his way. He has every right to. You cannot protect your exMM, he chose to have an affair with you, like you chose to have one with him. Part of the consquences of having an A is dealing with the fallout which is out of your hands. If you don't love your husband, and you're confused go to counseling with him and on your own to figure it out. To divorce and not try to at least salvage what's left could be a mistake. You're grieving the loss of your exMM and right now you can't 'feel' what you're supposed to feel for your husband. The thing is, what if the love IS there and just buried? It'll take time to find that love, but if you feel your marriage is worth fighting for, FIGHT for it and do all that you can to let exMM out of your heart and mind. That is, if your husband is willing to give you that chance to make things right again. 4
Author soundsfamilar Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 thank you, WWIU. my MM knows that he is at risk, he's always known and even sometimes said he wishes it would "all come out". i'm just worried that it would cause pain once again, on both sides. something inside me wants to just be over all of it… leave it behind, you know? i still hope that the love for my husband is buried, but: i felt this way before the A started. the A just made it more clear. there were problems before that and i had suggested marriage counseling. back then, my husband didn't want to go. now he does… but i'm afraid it may be too late? who knows. also: i am in individual counseling and have been for a while.
psm04 Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 Hi, welcome to the forum. I'm also a MW who recently for the final time ended an A with a MM. About the love returning for your H, it depends on whether you loved him to begin with. For me, I love my H, but not in the same way I loved my xAP. It isn't the crazy passionate love. It's a 'settled down' love, which I have learned to appreciate after the hell I went through in my A. If you want to say in your M, keep working at it, maybe go to counseling, and try to not dwell on the AP too much. It stands in the way. As to whether this will ever get better, I truly hope so. It does get better in the sense that you won't feel so crazy after a while, but I haven't had a day where he hasn't crossed my mind. We are co-workers, so it's worse during the week days. However, my wounds are still fresh. We did the stop/restart for so long but this time is really it. For both of us. It's heart breaking, but it's what is best, and I hope for both of our sakes that it gets better. Good luck! 2
lilmisscantbewrong Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 (edited) FMOW here (as well as BS later). I can attest that what I went through 4 years ago was about the worse pain I have ever experienced so I totally understand. I am certain I will be one of the lone people here that is going to advise you differently. As painful as this is, his wife needs to know and honestly your husband should be the one to tell her. This is for many reasons, but the biggest is she deserves to know - it isn't fair that she doesn't know. Also, if you are in recovery with your husband (regardless of what the outcome will be) you need to be NC with your AP anyway while working out your marriage situation. Do I think your AP will eventually be with you? I have no crystal ball so I cannot say for certain. But one thing I will tell you is that right now he is doing damage control and he is trying to control and manipulate you by using your "love" for him to protect him. This will get you nowhere. If this is the case, he is a COWARD (and this is my gut feeling). He needs to face the consequences of his decisions. For him to be telling you to convince your husband not to tell his wife only tells me he is a coward and he is not leaving his wife - period. I'm sorry for your pain. Edited December 30, 2013 by lilmisscantbewrong 2
Author soundsfamilar Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 hi psm04, thank you for your words. i wish i felt something resembling the kind of love you need to stay in a marriage, but right now i don't. i know that that "settled down" kind of love is not the worst, i'm just wondering if it's enough. i'm not wanting to have sex, for example, with my H. that alone does say quite a bit, no? i wonder why, though. he's attractive, it's not that i'm repulsed or anything. i'm just not in love anymore. it's so heartbreaking… and i can't seem to believe that through therapy it would return, but i am willing to try. the thing is: i have had therapy (IC) for a while, even before the A. and it didn't get me anywhere. maybe i was never truly in love to begin with? i don't know…
Author soundsfamilar Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 hi lilmiss, thanks for your thoughts. i agree that the wife deserves to know, i'm just afraid of the added fallout. MM and i don't work together, but are connected professionally. somehow i imagine her going wild, telling all my FB friends or whatever. then again, he has quite a high-profile career, so i doubt she would expose him that much. it's just that i fear the unknown… as to him asking me to protect him… he never did. he just thanked me back in july when i told him how hard it was to keep my H from reacting impulsively and email the wife. and he thanked me again when a similar reaction happened recently, around our break up, when my H suddenly fell back into all the threats. sometimes i felt like MM wanted things to come out… almost like he would welcome the relief. and all that said: it's not like he freaked out and told me to stay away after my dday. he just went on, knowing the risk. i really think he was chancing it then, so that something, anything, would bring about change. it was torturous for both of us...
tchrgrl Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 oh soundsfamiliar, it does sound familiar!!!!!! I am a MOW involved with a MOM that I think I love but recognize would not be the best choice for me. I fantasize about us having the chance to be together but he does not want to divorce like I am tempted to. I have no feelings really left for my husband but hate to create a broken home for my children. So we act like roommates and that makes me so sad to think I will have to have that "settled down" love until I can make a decision....it's so hard, I feel for you, I get what you are going through
Author soundsfamilar Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 thank you, tchrgrl. it's truly the worst situation to be in, aside from a major illness or death. i look at my life in shambles right now (internally anyway) and i have had suicidal thoughts over the last months, which is NOT who i usually am. it's like everything went to hell in a hand basket for me. the thing is: i knew my MM through occasional work connection for years. i always felt he was someone i would really like, but never thought anything could happen. when it did it just overwhelmed me. and i still think he would have been a great match for me… but he was taken. so what am i really entitled to complain about, right? i get it… in my defense, he did what they all do. he told me about his disconnected, sexless marriage, we were both surprised about how different our lives were from what we had expected of each other. i don't know how much of it was lies… i still believe him in terms of his marriage. we talked a lot about it, about mine too. it was more of an EA anyway, since we live very far apart.
scatterd Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 Your husband knows you are protecting you mm.If you want your husband to know your willing to work this out, you will let him tell. That is a jester of letting him know you care more about your Marriage then MM. His wife also should know so she can make a decision to do what she needs with the information given. He new he could get caught. Give your husband what he needs to heal. 1
Author soundsfamilar Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 hi scatterd, i told my H he can tell her if that's what he wants. at this point, he doesn't seem to want to anymore. he too seems to worry what kind of fallout there would be and what that would mean to me/us. i think he wants to move away from the anger, move on. i also want to be sure that i don't encourage him because of MY hidden agenda to let the wife know. i have days when all i want is that. but it can't be done because i think of it as revenge or anything. and my feelings right now are still to raw and confused to be 100% sure that i'm not doing it (encouraging H to tell) because of MY need for retaliation. that would be worse in my book.
tchrgrl Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 I know about the life in shambles and I have also gone to very dark places that are so not me....I have sometimes felt my family would all be better off without me! Then I look at my children and I get so angry that I would let a man make me feel like this....I also know about the sexless marriage they are in and the connection that is felt between you both. It seems impossible to get over and I hope each day gets better for you.... 2
scatterd Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 I am sorry what you are going through. But I just think about how his wife has probably been mistreated through this all also and how she deserves to know her feelings were right. This shows your husband how much his feelings matter. Why should you only be getting the rap for this you was not alone . Mistakes happen. I know you feel you are not in love with your husband but it will come back, Your attention was else ware give it time things will get better. Big Hugs 3
dreamingoftigers Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 but i understand that i am also protecting myself by preventing my H from telling MM's wife. Yes, and you are just protecting MM. Which sucks for everyone except MM. I never understand why AP do this. Just let him tell. 3
dreamingoftigers Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 thank you, WWIU. my MM knows that he is at risk, he's always known and even sometimes said he wishes it would "all come out". i'm just worried that it would cause pain once again, on both sides. something inside me wants to just be over all of it… leave it behind, you know? i still hope that the love for my husband is buried, but: i felt this way before the A started. the A just made it more clear. there were problems before that and i had suggested marriage counseling. back then, my husband didn't want to go. now he does… but i'm afraid it may be too late? who knows. also: i am in individual counseling and have been for a while. Honey the grass gets greener where you water it. I wish more WS knew this. If you half-commit to a marriage and put the work toward an affair of course the affair is always going to shine brighter. Perhaps it's time to ask "what do I have to offer my husband?" Instead of "Do his farts smell like lilac, just like my affair partner's do?" 3
psm04 Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 hi psm04, thank you for your words. i wish i felt something resembling the kind of love you need to stay in a marriage, but right now i don't. i know that that "settled down" kind of love is not the worst, i'm just wondering if it's enough. i'm not wanting to have sex, for example, with my H. that alone does say quite a bit, no? i wonder why, though. he's attractive, it's not that i'm repulsed or anything. i'm just not in love anymore. it's so heartbreaking… and i can't seem to believe that through therapy it would return, but i am willing to try. the thing is: i have had therapy (IC) for a while, even before the A. and it didn't get me anywhere. maybe i was never truly in love to begin with? i don't know… Anytime! I can totally relate to you. I'm not repulsed by my H at all either. We are very close, and I adore him. But, thoughts of being sexually intimate with him don't do anything for me. There was a thread here about this a while ago. A lot of us are in the same boat. We are all in some ways sacrificing being in love and passionate for the security, friendship, trust etc. The A made it even worse because my xAP reminded me of being in love. I had thought that something was wrong with me up till that point. Therapy while in the middle of the A doesn't help much. I did that as well. The MC has helped a lot for us.
scatterd Posted December 31, 2013 Posted December 31, 2013 Its not easy being married its hard to keep things alive with work, kids ,cleaning and life. After time the honey moon is over and we forget how to keep the the romance going. After so many times of asking for inner needs to be met and not getting it from who we want from. Its not hard for someone else to say what you need to hear.If your not careful and determined you can be pulled into an affair. We need to try to remember whom ever you are with the honeymoon period wears off and the problems you have now would just be a whole new set of them with someone else. They could be worse. Like dreamingoftigers says the grass gets greener where you water it or its not always greener on the other side. Keep watering your grass and then if it never greens its time to get out. I wish you all wonderful relationships. 1
Mickey_Fitzpatrick Posted December 31, 2013 Posted December 31, 2013 (edited) i guess the things i grapple with most are these: 1. although i know some say affairs are "fantasies", this love seemed very real when it was happening. and consequently the love for my husband is right now not there… and i have to admit it wasn't (due to many reasons) when the affair began last year. my question: do you think it can return? It's possible that it can return, but is not likely. Probably, if he is like most married guys I know, he got a little settled in the relationship and stopped doing the things that caused you to be attracted to him to start with, whatever those things were. Stopped paying you attention, stopped making you feel sexually desirable (remember how much he had sex on the brain when he first was dating you and courting you?), stopped being a challenge (remember when you were worried about getting him to commit to you and trying to win him over, how you got those butterflies, that feeling of infatuation?), stopped doing whatever it was that he did that got your juices flowing. Add to that, once you KNOW you have won each other over, like once you are married for a few years, the infatuation "butterflies-in-the-stomach" phase wears off. So along comes other man, gives you whatever it is you need to feel the attraction of romantic love, and you're off to the races. You MIGHT be able to get attraction back if your husband decides to leave you, or if another woman develops a serious romantic interest in your husband. I have seen some situations where the wife can regain attraction for the husband when one or the other or both of those things happen - I don't know if it's because she realizes how much she really does love husband now that he is moving on or fears that someone else will have him, or if because when husband suddenly develops a backbone and some self-respect that makes him more attractive, or some combination of the two. This situation almost never happens. Usually the husband doesn't do either of those things, or does them too late, after the divorce is in process, after too much harm has been done, once things are past the point of no return. Also, if the husband changes his behavior solely to win back his wife, it is not appealing, and it doesn't work, just makes him look pathetic. Sometimes, if the husband has been jerky during the marriage, and he tries to change, it is either too little too late or the wife doesn't believe the changes will last once she re-commits, or her mind already is made up, so she moves on. I don't know if any of those apply to you, or if you will re-gain your attraction for your husband. Absent those conditions I posted above, I have never seen it happen, and even if husband does do those things, they usually either don't re-kindle the attraction or it comes too late. Also, some women seem able to be in love with two guys at once, but most I have known are "one-man" women, they only can be "in love" with one guy at a time. So if they are "in love" with their affair partner, then they won't be able to feel that way for their husband. Edited December 31, 2013 by Mickey_Fitzpatrick 5
yellowmaverick Posted December 31, 2013 Posted December 31, 2013 Honey the grass gets greener where you water it. I wish more WS knew this. If you half-commit to a marriage and put the work toward an affair of course the affair is always going to shine brighter. Perhaps it's time to ask "what do I have to offer my husband?" Instead of "Do his farts smell like lilac, just like my affair partner's do?" If WS were the type of people who unselfishly asked ,"what do I have to offer my spouse", they would never have an affair in the first place. 2
Author soundsfamilar Posted December 31, 2013 Author Posted December 31, 2013 without divulging too much information since this forum is public, i can say that my M before the A was strained. i tried "watering" it, begged my H to go to therapy for his depression and he said no. i lived several years waking up nearly every morning fearing that my life would just remain as is: unhappy. i think there comes the point when you have to face the truth, as painful as it is. an A is not the way to go, i get that. but it's also easy to say that "the grass is always greener" on the other side, when you're not standing on torched grass already. this may mean i have to leave my M, but i guess i am still hoping for a miracle. or that somehow this crisis becomes a catalyst and the torched grass becomes green again after all...
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