I screwed up, badly, how can I make amends?

[Johnnie11235]

No preamble, no mollycoddling, here it is, the whole damn thing;

 

I have been married to a wonderful woman (call her Mary) for nearly six years, and I've cheated on her, first emotionally and then, finally, physically.

 

We had recently been experiencing a lag or slump in our relationship. I was working in a soul-murdering job that was way below my qualifications or expectations, and she was at odds with the administration where she worked. [external stress source]

 

My job was retail, and hers was a M-F 9 to 5, so we didn't really get much opportunity for "quality time", since I was almost guaranteed to work Fridays, Saturdays, and nearly every other Sunday. We kind of started drifting apart, I guess, and one day a couple (call them X & Y) that Mary and I have been friends with, came to where I worked. 'X' has a lucrative career as a lawyer, and 'Y' is a housewife who gave up her lawyering career to raise their daughters (so the middle of her days are free while they are at school). Mary would hang out with them on the weekends at a local coffee shop, and she developed a casual friendship with them in which I would sort of pop my head in and say 'hi' when I got the chance. Anyway, when they came to my work, I mentioned to Y that we ought to have coffee sometime and hang out (she and her husband are very intelligent and of a philosophical bent of mind, and one of my majors was in Philosophy.

 

AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I WAS NOT ASKING HER THIS WITH ANY ULTERIOR MOTIVES!!!

You have to trust me on that. I am not originally from the city in which we reside, and am not that good at making new friends, or maybe I don't try very hard, so I have very little by way of a local support group.

 

Anyhow, she said OK (hesitantly) and later on one of my weekdays off, I called her up for coffee. We met and talked and really started to become very good friends. As time went on, we would stay for progressively longer periods of time at the coffee shop, and I realized that I was starting to fall for this woman! I told her as much, and she said that she felt the same. I told her that this had to be the line. No further. We were both married to wonderful people we loved, and she had two young girls fer crissakes! She agreed to this as well.

 

As you can probably tell by now, for all of my book learnin', I'm not very smart.

 

As we continued to meet for coffee, we began to confide more and more in each other. I told her of the holding pattern that Mary and I had fallen into, "Sometimes we just feel like roommates" and she would tell me that she was in a passionless marriage, that there had never been any passion, but he had given her the children that she wanted. We would look at each other across the table holding hands (for strength, connection, etc. or so I allowed myself to believe/rationalize) and that was It (strained, shamed, uncomfortable laughter).

 

Mary begged me to stop meeting her for our hours long coffees, my therapist told me that I was playing with fire, My best friend, who lives in another state, told me to "watch out". I ignored them. "How could they know this intimate yet chaste, forcedly Platonic, meeting of the minds?"

 

Then one evening, I was over at their (X&Y's) house and it was X's birthday. So we all drank to his health. We drank so much to his health that I couldn't drive home, not immediately, so I stayed to sober up, and Y kept me company, and we talked. She talked about how clueless her husband was, how mean Mary was to me, "I would never treat you like that" and "I can only imagine what sex with you would be like" (Mary and I had not had much lately).

 

Then, when I was finally sober enough to drive, she gave me a ride to the coffee place, where I had left my car when she drove me to their house for the birthday party. We looked into each other's eyes and she grabbed me and kissed me! I kissed her back. I should have pushed her away and told her "no, we can't", but I didn't. We kissed for a long time, and I got into my car and drove home. My mind spinning. What have I done? What am I doing? What are WE doing? That's how it started.

 

We continued to meet for coffee with our new secret romance. she would drive to dark, out of the way places and we would go to what I guess is 3rd base, our animal passions taking over. We came up with a code; "someday" we would have sex. we spoke of someday, and then Mary flew out of state to visit some friends. Y told her husband that she needed to "get away", and we found a secluded spot to leave my car, and she drove us away to hotels, nice hotels, where she would pay for the room and meals and we would walk the sidewalks of another town, freely holding hands and kissing in public. Our "someday" had finally arrived, and we screwed to beat the band. She is much shorter than my Mary and I am much taller than X, and she had already told me, even before she kissed me, that she had fantasized about what sex would be like with me, what positions, and that she had orgasmed without touching herself, just thinking about me. So we had a lot of sex and drove home, she to her husband, and I to my home to await my wife's arrival home.

 

We continued to meet for coffee, and she encouraged me to "start my own home-remodeling buisiness". and I could start by fixing some things around her house that she could pay me for it as sort of a 'practice run'. drawers, desks, beds, and as a matter of fact, she needed someone to redo her basement. I didn't then, but now I see that I was simply her whore, her house-boy, her arm-candy, her buffer for when she finally left X.

 

Mary returned from her flight, and we talked. briefly. She asked/begged me again to stop seeing Y, It hurt her so much and she couldn't bear it, because "things happen". What could I do? I couldn't tell her, not now, not yet. and I was involved in a business venture with Y anyway. So she gave me a choice, Y or her. I took Y. God help me, I chose Y.

I left the house with a few things, and called Y to see if I could stay on their couch for the night. She said sure. I spent the next week sleeping on X & Y's couch, Y staying up late talking with me, making out with me, telling me how right I was to have left Mary, and that "now we can each go on to better things, because we had only been holding each other back." What could I say? here was who I took to be a wonderful woman who loved me (yes, we had uttered those fateful, soul-binding words to each other), and who believed in me and was paying me good money, and I mean really good money, to refinish her basement. I, like an ass, was indebted to her for what she had (I thought) selflessly given to me. I OWED her.

 

But then I went to see my therapist, who again helped me to see the error of my ways (I wish that sounded more powerful for the situation I'm talking about). I went to Y, met her at a bar (she bought me a beer), and told her that I was going back, to work on my marriage. She got angry and explained to me that "People who go to marriage counselors want to work on their marriage. Your marriage is over. Now you have ME!"

 

I was torn. I'm a fool for it, but I felt torn. A woman who has given me support and love for the last seven years (at least!), or this woman who was less than a year in my life but was telling me everything that I wanted to hear!

 

I went to marriage counseling with Mary, but I didn't participate much. I felt like all he talked about was how much of a screw-up I was, such a drag on Mary, such a drain with my not working or bringing in an income. I started to feel picked on and so I just kinda clammed up as a defensive mechanism.

 

We were lying in bed a few nights after, and Mary finally asked me, point blank, "have you kissed X", I hesitated, and decided that I couldn't lie to her, so I told her "yes". "have you done more than kiss her?" After an even longer pause, "yes". "Have you slept with her?" "Yes".

Angrily, "then you can get the f... out! Go sleep with your whore!" And she called Y up to tell him to make room on the couch, because his wife's boyfriend was coming over (X had already told Y and he had "come to grips" with it.

 

So I drove to X & Y's, to sleep on the couch. X stayed up telling me that it was all for the best, that we were "meant to be". And started spouting about Kismet and fate and Chakra work.

 

I finally was able to see what I had done, and I have since broken everything off with X, but it looks like it’s too late. Mary She will only communicate via emails and I am staying at a friend’s house.

 

Mary has retained counsel, but I want her back! It's all moving so fast!

 

Can anyone help me?!!? I'm in a lot of pain and I know that she is too, but she has cut off all communication but emails. I love her with all of my heart, an she says that she feels the same but that She hurts. Help me to span the chasm!? (sorry this is such a long post, thank you for reading it, and I would apprciate any advice. Please be kind, I know that I am a louse.)

[Chump64]

Mary holds all the cards now. There is little you can do but wait to see what she wants. For a while, you called all the shots, made all the decisions without her input or knowledge (including decisions that could have, ultimately, affected her health and well being -- HIV and STDs, not to mention mental turmoil/depression that you inflicted on her as a result of this), etc. You and your lover stood behind a one-way mirror, looking in on Mary's private life and sharing the privacy / daily minutiae of your marriage. Now it's Mary's turn. Frankly, I'm glad to see Mary in power now and I hope she reaches a decision that's best for her.

 

That said, there are a few things you can do if you really want her back. You can be 100 percent honest with her about everything that went on. She wants graphic details, you give them up. Hide nothing. Don't try to protect her pain or your a$$, for that matter. Tell her everything she wants to know; make sure to ask her "do you want to know XXX or would you rather not?" I am 4 months out from learning most of the sordid details of my husband's afffair. I wanted the gory details up front b/c to have them strung out over time is a killer. (Just this weekend I found out that he called his OW on the day our son was born, just like he called his parents, siblings, etc. I'm still reeling frm that one.) Ok, back on topic. Do sweet things for her that you never used to do. This is hard to do when you are apart. But you could drop some flowers off on her doorstep, or a nice home cooked meal, or any kind of sweet gesture. Give her all your email, voice mail, etc., passwords. If you want her back, you give up all privacy. Don't spend time alone with female friends or co-workers. Make her your #1 priority and walk the walk. Lip service is worthless. Go into marriage counseling with her. Buy some books about relationships and read them together.

 

It sounds like your relationship was suffering from a lack of attention on both of your parts. But that's not the whole story. Something is broken within you and you need to admit that to her and vow to find out what it is, and to fix it. THAT is the most important thing you can do, if you want to fix things. And you should do that whether Mary dumps you or not.

 

It's not clear - do you have kids? I hope she gives you another chance, but I can't say that I would, if there are no kids.

 

I couldn't quite tell -- does your affair partner's spouse know? Did I read correctly that he does know, and that he still allowed you to come over and stay there when Mary gave you the boot? That's messed up. Anyway, if he doesn't know, he needs to know. Otherwise you and your mistress will probably be humpin' again soon. Affairs thrive in secrecy. Put the pile of $hit on the table and pass out the spoons, to everyone involved. Keep the kids out of it though.

[sylviaguardian]

Wow what a mess. You have started to do some of the right things by being honest with her and going to counselling. You need to continue being 100% honest with your wife. My husband lied for months after his affair and each time he got caught out, it took another chip out of our marriage.

 

You need also to have no contact at all to Y. Just one phone call will be enough to blow any chance you had. If you really want to stay with your wife, you need to keep telling her it, even when she is screaming at you.

 

But what you need to do most is take a good look at yourself. You admit your marriage was in a slump so presumably it was pretty bad for both of you. Mary did not choose to cheat on you, but you chose to cheat on her? Why is that? You gave yourself green lights all the way: with the kissing, the 3rd base as you call it, the 'someday' promise.

 

Lastly, you need to ask yourself WHY you want to stay with Mary. Are you sure it's what you really want, or is it convenient? People who have affairs always underestimate how much damage affairs do to marriages because they have it sorted in their own head. Can you stay in a relationship where your spouse has lost respect for you and doesn't trust you? These are things that you need to consider.

 

Sylvia

[lechia]

I understand how you feel. The only thing that I can advise you is that keep on communicating with Mary and prove to her that you truly love her. Beg her to talk to you personally, ask her to give you another chance. Just pray that Mary will realize that you are just only human who is capable of commiting sins/mistakes. Nobody is perfect.

 

Don't lose hope and do not give up. Continue exerting more efforts in winning her back. You may want to woo her again.

 

Good luck....

 

 

No preamble, no mollycoddling, here it is, the whole damn thing;

 

I have been married to a wonderful woman (call her Mary) for nearly six years, and I've cheated on her, first emotionally and then, finally, physically.

 

We had recently been experiencing a lag or slump in our relationship. I was working in a soul-murdering job that was way below my qualifications or expectations, and she was at odds with the administration where she worked. [external stress source]

 

My job was retail, and hers was a M-F 9 to 5, so we didn't really get much opportunity for "quality time", since I was almost guaranteed to work Fridays, Saturdays, and nearly every other Sunday. We kind of started drifting apart, I guess, and one day a couple (call them X & Y) that Mary and I have been friends with, came to where I worked. 'X' has a lucrative career as a lawyer, and 'Y' is a housewife who gave up her lawyering career to raise their daughters (so the middle of her days are free while they are at school). Mary would hang out with them on the weekends at a local coffee shop, and she developed a casual friendship with them in which I would sort of pop my head in and say 'hi' when I got the chance. Anyway, when they came to my work, I mentioned to Y that we ought to have coffee sometime and hang out (she and her husband are very intelligent and of a philosophical bent of mind, and one of my majors was in Philosophy.

 

AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I WAS NOT ASKING HER THIS WITH ANY ULTERIOR MOTIVES!!!

You have to trust me on that. I am not originally from the city in which we reside, and am not that good at making new friends, or maybe I don't try very hard, so I have very little by way of a local support group.

 

Anyhow, she said OK (hesitantly) and later on one of my weekdays off, I called her up for coffee. We met and talked and really started to become very good friends. As time went on, we would stay for progressively longer periods of time at the coffee shop, and I realized that I was starting to fall for this woman! I told her as much, and she said that she felt the same. I told her that this had to be the line. No further. We were both married to wonderful people we loved, and she had two young girls fer crissakes! She agreed to this as well.

 

As you can probably tell by now, for all of my book learnin', I'm not very smart.

 

As we continued to meet for coffee, we began to confide more and more in each other. I told her of the holding pattern that Mary and I had fallen into, "Sometimes we just feel like roommates" and she would tell me that she was in a passionless marriage, that there had never been any passion, but he had given her the children that she wanted. We would look at each other across the table holding hands (for strength, connection, etc. or so I allowed myself to believe/rationalize) and that was It (strained, shamed, uncomfortable laughter).

 

Mary begged me to stop meeting her for our hours long coffees, my therapist told me that I was playing with fire, My best friend, who lives in another state, told me to "watch out". I ignored them. "How could they know this intimate yet chaste, forcedly Platonic, meeting of the minds?"

 

Then one evening, I was over at their (X&Y's) house and it was X's birthday. So we all drank to his health. We drank so much to his health that I couldn't drive home, not immediately, so I stayed to sober up, and Y kept me company, and we talked. She talked about how clueless her husband was, how mean Mary was to me, "I would never treat you like that" and "I can only imagine what sex with you would be like" (Mary and I had not had much lately).

 

Then, when I was finally sober enough to drive, she gave me a ride to the coffee place, where I had left my car when she drove me to their house for the birthday party. We looked into each other's eyes and she grabbed me and kissed me! I kissed her back. I should have pushed her away and told her "no, we can't", but I didn't. We kissed for a long time, and I got into my car and drove home. My mind spinning. What have I done? What am I doing? What are WE doing? That's how it started.

 

We continued to meet for coffee with our new secret romance. she would drive to dark, out of the way places and we would go to what I guess is 3rd base, our animal passions taking over. We came up with a code; "someday" we would have sex. we spoke of someday, and then Mary flew out of state to visit some friends. Y told her husband that she needed to "get away", and we found a secluded spot to leave my car, and she drove us away to hotels, nice hotels, where she would pay for the room and meals and we would walk the sidewalks of another town, freely holding hands and kissing in public. Our "someday" had finally arrived, and we screwed to beat the band. She is much shorter than my Mary and I am much taller than X, and she had already told me, even before she kissed me, that she had fantasized about what sex would be like with me, what positions, and that she had orgasmed without touching herself, just thinking about me. So we had a lot of sex and drove home, she to her husband, and I to my home to await my wife's arrival home.

 

We continued to meet for coffee, and she encouraged me to "start my own home-remodeling buisiness". and I could start by fixing some things around her house that she could pay me for it as sort of a 'practice run'. drawers, desks, beds, and as a matter of fact, she needed someone to redo her basement. I didn't then, but now I see that I was simply her whore, her house-boy, her arm-candy, her buffer for when she finally left X.

 

Mary returned from her flight, and we talked. briefly. She asked/begged me again to stop seeing Y, It hurt her so much and she couldn't bear it, because "things happen". What could I do? I couldn't tell her, not now, not yet. and I was involved in a business venture with Y anyway. So she gave me a choice, Y or her. I took Y. God help me, I chose Y.

I left the house with a few things, and called Y to see if I could stay on their couch for the night. She said sure. I spent the next week sleeping on X & Y's couch, Y staying up late talking with me, making out with me, telling me how right I was to have left Mary, and that "now we can each go on to better things, because we had only been holding each other back." What could I say? here was who I took to be a wonderful woman who loved me (yes, we had uttered those fateful, soul-binding words to each other), and who believed in me and was paying me good money, and I mean really good money, to refinish her basement. I, like an ass, was indebted to her for what she had (I thought) selflessly given to me. I OWED her.

 

But then I went to see my therapist, who again helped me to see the error of my ways (I wish that sounded more powerful for the situation I'm talking about). I went to Y, met her at a bar (she bought me a beer), and told her that I was going back, to work on my marriage. She got angry and explained to me that "People who go to marriage counselors want to work on their marriage. Your marriage is over. Now you have ME!"

 

I was torn. I'm a fool for it, but I felt torn. A woman who has given me support and love for the last seven years (at least!), or this woman who was less than a year in my life but was telling me everything that I wanted to hear!

 

I went to marriage counseling with Mary, but I didn't participate much. I felt like all he talked about was how much of a screw-up I was, such a drag on Mary, such a drain with my not working or bringing in an income. I started to feel picked on and so I just kinda clammed up as a defensive mechanism.

 

We were lying in bed a few nights after, and Mary finally asked me, point blank, "have you kissed X", I hesitated, and decided that I couldn't lie to her, so I told her "yes". "have you done more than kiss her?" After an even longer pause, "yes". "Have you slept with her?" "Yes".

Angrily, "then you can get the f... out! Go sleep with your whore!" And she called Y up to tell him to make room on the couch, because his wife's boyfriend was coming over (X had already told Y and he had "come to grips" with it.

 

So I drove to X & Y's, to sleep on the couch. X stayed up telling me that it was all for the best, that we were "meant to be". And started spouting about Kismet and fate and Chakra work.

 

I finally was able to see what I had done, and I have since broken everything off with X, but it looks like it’s too late. Mary She will only communicate via emails and I am staying at a friend’s house.

 

Mary has retained counsel, but I want her back! It's all moving so fast!

 

Can anyone help me?!!? I'm in a lot of pain and I know that she is too, but she has cut off all communication but emails. I love her with all of my heart, an she says that she feels the same but that She hurts. Help me to span the chasm!? (sorry this is such a long post, thank you for reading it, and I would apprciate any advice. Please be kind, I know that I am a louse.)