Do I owe the single man an explanation?

[treehugger12]

My advice might not be the best, but I really feel for you reading both your threads, especially since you are now pregnant, I can just imagine your going through a whirlpool of emotions. I’m not here to judge you at all but I would suggest you saying good bye to OM and closing that chapter in your life. You’ve had a relationship with this man and there are feelings involved. It sounds like the affair started well before you became pregnant with your husbands baby right? So I can see where your having a hard time letting go, the heart wants what the heart wants, I’ve been in your shoes somewhat, I have no children but I’ve been with my husband half of my life and I know what it’s like when your not getting your needs met at home, then someone comes along unexpectedly in your life and then it happens. It does NOT make you a bad person. We all make mistakes, some posters here can be really harsh because they have been the BS. I think your marriage can work if you want it too but you need to let go of OM and be honest with your husband how your feeling. You need to do it for you child and baby. You don’t need any added stress while your pregnant. Send him a good bye text, I would not ghost him. Then block him. It will hurt like hell for a while, but it will get better in time, time heals. We are here for you. Hope you have a warm and blessed Thanksgiving.

[jolinb]

My advice might not be the best, but I really feel for you reading both your threads, especially since you are now pregnant, I can just imagine your going through a whirlpool of emotions. I’m not here to judge you at all but I would suggest you saying good bye to OM and closing that chapter in your life. You’ve had a relationship with this man and there are feelings involved. It sounds like the affair started well before you became pregnant with your husbands baby right? So I can see where your having a hard time letting go, the heart wants what the heart wants, I’ve been in your shoes somewhat, I have no children but I’ve been with my husband half of my life and I know what it’s like when your not getting your needs met at home, then someone comes along unexpectedly in your life and then it happens. It does NOT make you a bad person. We all make mistakes, some posters here can be really harsh because they have been the BS. I think your marriage can work if you want it too but you need to let go of OM and be honest with your husband how your feeling. You need to do it for you child and baby. You don’t need any added stress while your pregnant. Send him a good bye text, I would not ghost him. Then block him. It will hurt like hell for a while, but it will get better in time, time heals. We are here for you. Hope you have a warm and blessed Thanksgiving.

 

Treehugger, it's been a long time since I've heard warm words until I read yours. Thank you so much. What you wrote is what exactly I felt towards my OM.

 

If you have read the newest post I just posted this morning. You know that I already sent him the message, and he accepted it. Honestly, I'm already hurting now. But it is the best for everyone to end the affair.

 

You are very right, at this point, I don't need any stress. And yes, the OM and I had begun long before I got pregnant. After I got pregnant, the OM said he was so sad, and so angry at himself for not asking me to leave the marriage earlier. He said that he was worried he would get rejected. I'm sorry I'm still talking so much about the OM, I have to let it all out.

 

I received a physical abuse from my husband during the affair and I told the OM. He told me to call the police but he never came to me.I had hated him so much for not coming out to rescue me. And he said if I didn't want to call the police then he didn't want me to tell him again if this happen again.

 

He didn't know that I couldn't call the police because violence had happened couple years before, and I did call the police, my husband got arrested and the child protection department came to me trying to make me decide if I should give them my older child. Somehow we worked it out without having my husband going to jail and we kept our child. After that, I had been scared to death to lose my child.

 

Anyway, I blocked the OM because I didn't see him caring for me even when I got hurt. It was around half way of the affair. Later he found a way to contact me and apologized a million times and I gave in. He said that he felt horrible and should have taken me away, but he was afraid because of the illegal relationship itself. He had promised since then that his home was my and my children's home.

 

After I got pregnant, I have sensed his emotion change during texting. He's acted so blue. He kept saying that he wish this baby was his. I became more and more confused.

 

I have met him one time after I got pregnant, by lying to husband. Meeting him was happy for me, but when it was time to leave, I drove away seeing him standing at his door, I felt horrible and really messed up. I felt like I was a whore. And I certainly didn't/don't want him to see me as a whore.

 

And when I got home, facing my husband, although he doesn't really care much about what's going on in my life. I felt failure...

 

So I decided that I need to pick myself up. There were broken pieces of me all over the place. I was sick, mentally sick, I had no spirit. The children whom I'm raising up certainly need a mother who is healthy.

[aliveagain]

Disrespecting and risking your husband is one thing, disrespecting the new life you've created and putting your unborn child at risk, shame, shame on you. There is a very good chance that one day you will have to explain your behavior to your family. I wonder how special your husbands memory of this child's birth will be? I wonder how special you'll think the other man is then.

[BaileyB]

I'm so sorry, I understand that this is a very complicated situation. There are no easy answers and because of that, your story hurts my heart.

 

Having heard now that your husband has been physically abusive to you in the past, my advice would be to use whatever resources you can access and get away from this man. Is that something you have considered? Do you have any support? And why, are you bringing another child into an abusive home situation...

[BarbedFenceRider]

By reading all of this I am thinking there are some "hidden" things we don't know about...

 

I'm going out on a limb here, I say the BH knows...

He knows about the prior men, and this new one.

 

I will leave it at that...

Just an observation.

[wmacbride]

op,

I've read your posts, an to be completely honest, I think you are full of it.

 

When I say that, I don't mean that your are purposely lying, but that you are rationalizing your behavior by trying to make it other people's fault. Your words are full of blame for your husband, a smattering of blame for your om, but very little personal responsibility for you.

 

That's not good, because so long as you see your A as being driven by others, you're going to be like a leaf blowing around in the wind. The good news is that you can stop.

 

Your first step is to end the A, which it sounds like you have done. That's great, and likley not an easy thing to do. What comes next?

 

One step is to start taking your power back by accepting responsibility for your actions and working to find better ways of handling yourself. You sound like a lady who is intelligent and, for the most part, has a lot of common sense. Use those traits to help yourself right now. Make a plan that includes lots of "I" pronouns for your way forward. Examples: "I will not contact the om if I am feeling lonely or bored. Instead I will go for a walk, go out with friends, engage in a hobby I enjoy, etc." and " If my ex-om tries to contact me, I will be firm in my response that I want to be left alone".

 

You can do this. You are much stronger than you may realize. I expect that, given time and distance from the A, you'll realize one day just how out of hand it all got. For now, make a plan for what you will do should your ex-om try to initiate contact and take each day as it comes.

[stillafool]

OP, if you are really serious about ending it with your affair partner you will block him from contacting you. There is no good excuse to still be in contact with him.

[BreakOnThrough]

You and your husband are not compatible, it's that simple, if physical abuse has occurred, you have to find another place to live, to protect you and your children. There are resources out there to help you manage and transition. Please look into them now before it is too late. If you and the OM are meant to be, he will be there after you are complete and whole again. You owe it to yourself and children to get help, to be the person you deserve to be, this certainly isn't it.

[Colin Grant]

1) Sometimes those who revel in darkness need some harshness to see the light.

 

2) Your title uniquely says everything that is wrong with you and your situation. It implies your thoughts of concern rests with your boyfriend, not your husband. Think about that for a second. You have a husband and a lover/boyfriend. Your title and words indicate your husband is Plan B and your boyfriend/lover is Plan A even though you know he's feeding you bs.

 

3) Quote: "I think I'm just in this feeling of being excited". As long as you feel excited for your lover, the affair will not stop no matter how hard you try. The temptation of lust is one that nearly has an undefeated track record. You must get yourself to a point that your boyfriend/lover has to appall and sicken you. You must see him as a person that will and can (if he hasn't already) destroy your husband, your marriage, your family and your self-dignity and respect. This is just a tip of the iceberg, as affairs tend to have unintended, long-term lingering costs that add up. When you look at the totality of the costs versus the lust induced excitement, you MIGHT view it as a sickening period of your life that must cease immediately and that your boyfriend/lover represents the worst in you that you must eradicate in order to move on, for yourself first and foremost

 

4) Quote: "My husband, on the other hand, doesn't make me happy." I'm going to take this one at face value as it's possible the statement doesn't fully cover your intent, so I'll say this. Only you are responsible to make yourself happy, not your husband. By making yourself happy, you then share the happiness in YOUR life with others, and most importantly your husband. Bottom line, your happiness is on you. Now your husband with his actions or non-actions can cut into your happiness, but if he's unhappy he has to also look at himself to manufacture his own happiness. At this point you two are independently happy and exponentially enhance one another's lives and happiness. Don't expect for others to do for you what you are unwilling or incapable of doing for yourself.

 

5) I haven't read other posts yet, but I'm sure you've been questioned on the legitimacy of the baby being your husband's. From his perspective the fact that this MIGHT or could be in question is equivalent to being stabbed in the chest with a wound that will require immediate corrective surgery for survival, but will never heal. The fact that your conception and the affair were simultaneous, doubt will be present until a DNA test proves otherwise. I know this is a very, very difficult thing to say, but betrayed spouses have triggers that happen frequently and can reoccur for years. It's the slightest thing, like a song or what you were wearing when you told him, or the whereabouts of your physical encounters. They will stay embedded in his mind for a real long time. I honestly hate saying this, but you must know. Your husband might be triggered by your child simply due to your affair happening simultaneously. Furthermore when the baby you and your husband created was conceived and growing, another man's ..... was inside you, not too far from the baby fetus. As a MAN, I'm just telling you my thoughts.

 

6) The "excitement" that you are feeling is one thousand of a fraction of the pain it will cause your husband. Even if the marriage isn't at it's best right now, I'm going to go on a limb and assume you love him. Love and successful marriages are two different things. With that said, the person you love will be devastated for years. Your high school like crush on your boyfriend will have been gone for years, but the pain to your husband will be incomprehensible for you. Again, regardless of the marriage status, he loves you and the person he loves the most in his life has betrayed him and rocked him to his core like never before. If he loves you as I'm assuming, he will sleep for 3-4 hours a night for weeks, will not be able to eat, will probably encounter Post Traumatic Syndrome, will feel embarrassed and ashamed that his wife opened her legs for another man repeatedly and basically will be a zombie for months or even over a year or so depending on counseling and his own psychological makeup. You have to ask yourself, is the tradeoff worth it.

 

7) Quote: "I want to change for the baby." Perhaps consider changing for the baby's dad and for yourself. If for you and your husband, all three of you will benefit.

 

8) I can't put a percentage on it, but people in general have a tendency to underestimate the value of their own spouse and significant other. Monotonous days, turns into week, that turns into months that turns into years. Case in point: My wife is getting a little chubby and I don't like it. It's stupid I know. I'm sure there are things she doesn't like about me. But I'll tell you what. I've been visiting this board and have read hundreds of infidelity stories and cases. After seeing the f'd up activity out here like your story and others, my wife looks BEAUTIFUL now and I don't care about her extra 35 pounds.

 

I had grown accustomed to things, I began to look at what I didn't like as opposed to the hundreds of things she does well. Sometimes however It's not until a person is gone that you appreciate what you actually had. Neither me or my wife have gone outside our marriage. I've never thought of doing so, although had I wanted to it would be super easy. Same for her. My point is, I appreciate her without having had a marital crisis where sometimes the damage is irreparable. You don't want to find out about your husband's solid virtues after he's gone. You still have time. Some of the most solid, boring people have character and integrity in so much abundance that those without it (you perhaps?) cannot see the forest through the trees and see them for they really are.

 

Your halfway out the door. Whether you will step outside and stay outside in the cold is your decision. The warmth of your home however might still be an attractive option. It's out of your hands to some degree though. In time you will confess or the affair will be discovered. Could be tomorrow, next year or in 10 years. It'll surface for sure. When your husband finds out, he will determine if he stays or not. You can help him IMMENSELY through understanding the depth of pain and agony a man experiences when another man has taken and controlled his wife, emotionally and physically. Have you ever looked down after being hundreds of feet in the air and had that uncomfortable inner feeling due to fear of heights. It's like your stomach drops or something. Well, that physical sensation is what he will feel PERMANENTLY for a long time. Let that sink in for a second. He will NEVER be the same, but that' s not to say the marriage can't be successful.

Edited December 7, 2017 by Colin Grant

[William]

While the general topic of a married person owing a single person an explanation for their actions could find traction as a good discussion, this thread is about a specific interaction and the thread starter hasn't been around for a couple weeks so I'll close this up pending their return and interest, if any. Thanks to all for your replies.