the affair is over

[InaPanic]

I have had a nightmare of 3 weeks or so. After my emotional, online affair crossed the line into a sexual affair I have fallen to pieces & become a wreck. I had tried to hold onto OM because I do feel like I am in love with him or I wouldn't have done what I did but I am wondering at this point if it is love or just addiction to the things he used to say to me & the way he used to make me feel.

After today I feel like the affair is a hopeless cause. I feel like we have no future & I see no reason to keep holding on because I cannot continue to have a long term affair & keep two people going. It's killing me for the short time I have done it.

I do not want my husband to find out. I cannot imagine how he would deal with this. Can I go back, can we go back, to the happy couple I seriously believe that we were before I did this horrible thing? We cannot afford counseling & I do believe if he never finds out it will be best for him though carrying it inside of me for years seems almost unbearable but something I may have to learn to do. I don't honestly think there was anything wrong in our marriage. I think there was something wrong with ME & that I was/am having some midlife crisis & have lost my mind in the process.

How can I work on rebuilding a marriage that the other person doesn't know is being worked on. And how can I get over my feelings for the OM when I have a feeling he's going to still be trying to contact me because he said today we should remain friends & see where we are later down the road. That sounds like bull**** to me & I cannot remain 'friends' with someone I am in love with.

I think it's time I got my priority's straight & remember my husband who has been by my side all these many years & my children who are innocent in this & quit worrying about the OM & myself.

Please, if anyone out there has been in my shoes I need all the advice & support I can get.

[michelangelo]

My wife hid her first affair from me until she had yet another one many years later. I trully believe that if I had known about the first one, our lives would have been far different--for the better--than how our lives have turned out now.

 

She, like you, thought she could carry her horrible secret to the grave.

 

She lasted 16 years.

 

It was an extension of her awful selfishness. She allowed me to get further enmeshed in her life, we had two kids, I paid for her college, etc.

 

I did this all willingly based on a lie. That my wife was a loving and faithful wife.

 

What's ironic is all during our marriage she has been the one acting like she is inhabiting the moral high ground and accused me frequently of heating on her. Groundless accusations, btw.

 

I'm not saying you just blurt out your unfaithfulness to your husband over morning coffee. But you do owe him the truth so he can make a decision abouot HIS life and how to lead it in regards to you with all of the facts.

 

Yes, your revelation may result in the end of your marriage. But that is the risk you too when you decided to cheat.

 

i know what I am writing sounds harsh. But please take it to heart. You vowed to be a faithful spouse yet cheated. Your spouse has respected those vows. He deserves your respect now.

 

Give it to him.

[whichwayisup]

First off, take control of your life and tell the online guy it's over and say goodbye. Let him know that you won't be answering his emails if he tries to contact you.

 

If you can't afford counselling, find a priest/pastor or someone through work, wellness centre that can offer you some counselling. You need some extra help to cope with the loss.

 

I don't think you "loved" the online guy, but you did get attached and got used to the feelings he gave you. Think of it like an addiction and the only way to stop a habit like that is to go cold turkey. INfact, change your email address completely, add all your contacts into another account and never open that one again.

 

It's good that you've realized all this now instead of in another 3-6 months. I'm sure it really hurts, but no good could have come of this, unless you were willing to throw away everything in your life for some guy you don't know at all. (Did you ever read Owl's thread??? If not, go read it.)

[Bryanp]

If the roles were reversed wouldn't you expect and want your husband to be open and honest with you? The OM wants to have you on the side when he wants to be with you. Your OM is a player who could less cheating with a married woman. By not telling your husband you are continuing to disrespect and humiliate him in the worst possible way. If you were ever hurt and needed someone to care for you in a very serious way - who would you count on to help and be with you? The very least your husband needs is your honesty and respect to work on recovery in your marriage. I wish you luck.

[InaPanic]

Right at this moment, I am a nut case. My husband just thinks I'm in a depression (which I honestly feel I am) & he's doing all he can to help me. That adds to my guilt that here he is trying to be supportive of me & helping me get over someone else. I've never felt so f**ked & f**ked up in my life. I cannot imagine right now telling him. My biggest fear is that if I do he will also be as big a nut case as I am right now & then who will take care of our kids because at the moment I'm not good for anyone. I want to go back to how we were, when I felt happy & totally in love with him but now I have doubts that I was ever really 'in love' or just love him as a best friend & felt very comfortable & taken care of by him. I can honestly without doubt say that no one would ever treat me as well as my husband has & does. But right now i feel no emotion, & this is humiliating to admit to you all, towards him or even my kids. I feel numb over everything except this obsession towards the OM. I'm afraid until that is dealt with then I may not be able to move forward in getting him out of my life & fixing my marriage & my life. But I think, at this point, i need to go into self-preservation mode because I am getting worse every day.

[Sup]

Right at this moment, I am a nut case. My husband just thinks I'm in a depression (which I honestly feel I am) & he's doing all he can to help me. That adds to my guilt that here he is trying to be supportive of me & helping me get over someone else. I've never felt so f**ked & f**ked up in my life. I cannot imagine right now telling him. My biggest fear is that if I do he will also be as big a nut case as I am right now & then who will take care of our kids because at the moment I'm not good for anyone. I want to go back to how we were, when I felt happy & totally in love with him but now I have doubts that I was ever really 'in love' or just love him as a best friend & felt very comfortable & taken care of by him. I can honestly without doubt say that no one would ever treat me as well as my husband has & does. But right now i feel no emotion, & this is humiliating to admit to you all, towards him or even my kids. I feel numb over everything except this obsession towards the OM. I'm afraid until that is dealt with then I may not be able to move forward in getting him out of my life & fixing my marriage & my life. But I think, at this point, i need to go into self-preservation mode because I am getting worse every day.

 

You should have thought about that before you BANGED OM. You husband should know.

[silktricks]

I had tried to hold onto OM because I do feel like I am in love with him or I wouldn't have done what I did but I am wondering at this point if it is love or just addiction to the things he used to say to me & the way he used to make me feel.

 

You are trying to convince yourself you loved this man, because if you loved him you won't feel like such a bad person. The truth of the matter is probably that you did NOT love him, but became somewhat in love with an illusion. Illusions are compelling, but they are not real. Your husband is real. Your children are real. Your obsession for an illusion is simply a manifestation of other issues in your life.

 

 

I do not want my husband to find out.

It's understandable that you don't want your husband to find out. Not fair to him, but understandable.

 

{snip}

Can I go back, can we go back, to the happy couple I seriously believe that we were before I did this horrible thing?

 

maybe, but maybe not. you brought a third person into a relationship designed for two.

 

 

I don't honestly think there was anything wrong in our marriage. I think there was something wrong with ME & that I was/am having some midlife crisis & have lost my mind in the process.

 

There are all kinds of reasons that people stray - frankly none of them are good reasons, but one of the reasons (excuses, really) is midlife slump.

 

How can I work on rebuilding a marriage that the other person doesn't know is being worked on.

First, I personally strongly suggest telling your husband. It's not fair to him that you don't. However, if you've absolutely 100% decided that you aren't going to tell him:

 

Focus on your husband

Make special plans to do things with him. These don't need to be expensive things - in fact it's often better if they aren't.

Plan a picnic, make his favorite foods

Give him massages

Take showers with him

Play together - especially sexual play

Make food for him that you know he is especially fond of

Tell him all of the things you love about him

Tell him all of the things you like about him

 

 

 

And how can I get over my feelings for the OM when I have a feeling he's going to still be trying to contact me because he said today we should remain friends & see where we are later down the road. That sounds like bull**** to me & I cannot remain 'friends' with someone I am in love with.

 

Tell yourself all of the things about your husband that attracted you. Look at him (your husband) and concentrate on remembering all of the fun times you've had together.

Do not THINK about the OM. If he comes into your mind, banish him.

Someone here made a really good suggestion to someone, whenever you think of the OM, do something that physically hurts you. She suggested a thick rubber band on your wrist and snap your wrist with it. It pain must IMMEDIATELY be associated to your mind with your thoughts of the OM. This may sound stupid, but it will work. Your mind will stop bringing up what causes physical pain.

 

I think it's time I got my priority's straight & remember my husband who has been by my side all these many years & my children who are innocent in this & quit worrying about the OM & myself.

This is a very true statement. You need to concentrate on what you are and what you have. It's easy to dream about something/somebody else when you are unhappy about something. Because our spouses are so close to us, oftentimes we associate our spouse as the cause of our unhappiness. This is rarely true (except for abusive spouses). The truth of the matter is that our unhappiness generally lies within ourselves. If you should leave your husband for this OM, I can ABSOLUTELY guarantee that within a short period of time you will be unhappy with him. Probably far MORE unhappy with him, because of all the pain you have caused other people.

 

Analyze what is really making you unhappy, and work on that. Work on your relationship with your husband, and improving it. Work on making your husband the happiest man on earth. If he's happy, you'll be happier, too. Don't focus on your own problems, change your focus. It isn't really that hard to do, it's just hard to start doing it.

[InaPanic]

silktricks, everything you said made sense to me. I do like to believe I am not in love with OM but just addicted. It makes it sound like it should be easier to get him out of my life but not sure it isn't harder.

 

I want to be sexual with my husband in the worst way & we have had sex but I seem to feel nothing. I know part of it is the medication I'm on for depression, part of it is the depression & part of it is the guilt of knowing what I've done. I wish I had a sexual desire right now but I cannot go off medication for fear of actually being in worse condition than I am now.

 

I still want to believe I was not unhappy or unhappy with my husband but just made a really, really bad judgement call because I was having some midlife crisis. I would always tell the OM that I was perfectly happy before him but he always put doubt in my head. And I know everyone believes if I were happy I wouldn't have strayed....I just don't want to believe that's true.

 

I don't want to think that I can never get the happiness, the emotion & the love & sex back in my marriage because I do not want to go through a divorce & split up my family. I have no desire to be single again or be a single parent. I want to be happy in my family again.

 

I am still having problems getting my head together though & getting OM off my mind. I know I am in withdrawal but at times I really feel like I am cracking under the pressure. I don't want to put my husband through this.

[silktricks]

I still want to believe I was not unhappy or unhappy with my husband but just made a really, really bad judgement call because I was having some midlife crisis. I would always tell the OM that I was perfectly happy before him but he always put doubt in my head. And I know everyone believes if I were happy I wouldn't have strayed....I just don't want to believe that's true.

 

I want to be clear, I'm not saying that you were necessarily unhappy with your husband, or even that there was anything wrong in your relationship. That may not be the case. What I am saying is that there was something missing in your life, that you felt the pull of an illusion. The OM may well be a manipulative SOB - for sure that is the case with some people - who convinced you that black was white and up was down. That really isn't the issue right now, though.

 

The issue at the moment is that you need to reconnect with your husband in a loving manner. That may not be possible without your telling him the truth. Like I said before, he deserves the truth. However, if you concentrate on him and on making him happy, the odds are great that you will reconnect.

 

As far as the sexual feeling, there's a saying that has it's place sometimes. "fake it till you make it". Your husband doesn't need to know that you are numbed out. Work at making your marriage right and the feelings will come back. Talk to whatever dr gave you the anti-depressants and explain that they are having a negative effect on your sex life. There may be others that you can try. Or possibly you can (with the dr's approval) cut back to a lesser dosage. Don't go cold turkey off the anti-depressants, though, that could do more harm than good.

 

My husband and I discovered that our eating habits were having a huge effect on our moods, so we've modified that a lot. Cut out sugar and especially alcohol, as they are severe depressants. (First they lift you, then they drop you in the ditch.)

 

Anyway, best of luck for the future.

[InaPanic]

thanks again silktricks, you give good advice without making me feel worse than I already do.

today I have tried to spend time with husband & try to get OM off my mind as he seems to haunt it. I was looking at my husband, just watching him, & ........ I just don't seem to have any feeling...nothing. I think it could, & I hope it is just the frame of mind I am in right now & that i will get better with the help of this medicine & go back to normal. I've only been on my meds for a little over 2 weeks now. I am having high hopes that they will help me but right now it doesn't seem to be.

He realizes the meds affect me sexually & I do need to just do it for his sake at least. We used to have sex 2 or 3 times a week. I want to get back to that but have no desire inside of me to even do it.

When I got into this situation with OM I never would have dreamed it could make me feel this way. All I ever worried about was hurting OM because I never felt I would leave my husband for him & I worried about hurting my husband because of him finding out. I never even considered myself in it. Now OM seems to be fine, husband is fine (only because he's oblivious) & I am the one falling apart. I wish I could've seen in the future.

[destination_unknown]

I think you can fall back in love, if you try to be open to it, which it sounds like you are. Does your husband do anything special, for example does he fill up the gas when he knows you will be the next to drive the car or does he get up a few minutes before you so the coffee will be ready when you come down to the kitchen? As humans, when something is a habit we naturally begin to take it for granted but if we consciously remind ourselves of the little things they do for us we can get the feeling back.

[InaPanic]

My husband does so much for me, I can't even begin to tell it all. He will work all day & still come home & make dinner for me & the kids. He does work around the house, does laundry. He does things with the kids & for the kids. I recently lost a lot of weight & in all the time I was larger he never made me feel unloved, undesirable or ugly. He is truly the best husband I could ever find. I am not sure what has happened to me that I could do what I did. I really feel like I am the most selfish person alive. He has always treated me wonderfully & maybe after so many years of marriage, 18 it is, I just took him for granted. And maybe I still am.

I married young. I moved in with him at 19 & was married by 20. I know I am not the same person I was when I was 20 but until recently I never felt so different. He is also 10 years older than I am. He is unfairly being compared to someone much younger than him (the OM) & I hate myself everytime I do it. And I try to stop myself, and God knows it's the biggest obstacle I have right now, I can't stop these thoughts from coming into my head.

I have to get the OM out of my head so I can start looking at my husband in a way I should. Right now my mind is so blocked with all these obsessive thoughts that I honestly am not looking at my husband or my kids with the love & guilt that I think I should be.

[Guest]

Ina Panic, as you can see I am a guest on this forum, and I browse it from time to time. Quite frankly I have seldom seen such self delusional whinging and poor advice anywhere else on the internet, but your posts have struck a chord with me, because your situation is horribly familiar to me. You see I am one year into post affair recovery, where the emotions and acts were identical to yours, except it was my wife who was saying them. I was in the same position as your husband, and I would like you to have the benefit of my experience.

 

This will be quite a long post, and it is possible that you will disagree with some/all of what I write, but believe me this is the distilled advice from the most unpleasant experience of my life. I really hope it helps.

 

The first thing to make clear is that, no matter what you do from now on, your life is about to descend into a pit of misery from which escape will seem impossible. You must expect this. What you have already done makes this a certainty, but what you do from now will enable you to exert a measure of control over the events as they unfold. This is not meant to scare you, it is a simple fact. Whether or not you follow my advice, and tell your husband, your personal experience is going to be very unpleasant. Here is why:

 

An affair is a fantasy. You almost certainly don’t believe that, but it is true. Your heightened emotional state has convinced you that the secret life you have with your lover is your true reality, but the truth is just that - it is secret, built on lies, deception and illusion. And the lies don’t stop within the affair, it is just that you don’t realise that you are lying. You are in an affair because it makes you feel good. Your lover boosts your ego by telling you, in all likelihood, exactly the same things your husband does, but you have grown so used to them from him that they no longer ring true. Your lover makes you tingle, feel appreciated and special. Every time you meet you get an endorphine hit, and when you part you count the hours til your next fix. The parallel with a drug addiction is not accidental, it is virtually identical, and the withdrawal is just as unpleasant. But, outside your emotional highs, what does your affair REALLY consist of? What real problems do you face as a couple? Household bills, sick children, unsatisfactory job? All these ‘real world’ problems can be ignored because they do not intrude into your happy fantasy. These are the problems that you must face with your boring old husband. Real happiness is just you and your lover.

 

So what of the male experience? Well to be honest the highs are just as high, but the source is completely different. Your lover probably feels deeply happy to be having an affair with you, and has even convinced you, and himself, that he loves you. The source of that emotion? Well it’s the sex, of course. Like it or not, your lover is a predator, and in you he has the confirmation that he is a successful hunter. Sex, particularly the illicit sort with another mans wife, boosts his sense of self worth and gets him into the same ‘addicted’ cycle that you are in. I bet that he was pushing for the relationship to become physical from the earliest opportunity. What he does not get a kick from is any prospect of suddenly being responsible for his lover and her kids. Statistically only 4% - yes 4% - of adulterous relationships become stableand long term. If you don’t believe me then try telling him that you are no longer comfortable with the physicality of your relationship and wish it to be purely emotional, or that you want to leave your husband and move in with him. Within a month his ‘love’ will have withered to nothing.

 

And what of your husband? Well believe me, he knows that there is something severely wrong with his marriage, but his trust, and his emotions will not let him even contemplate that his beloved wife is being unfaithful to him. He has noticed the gradual withdrawal of intimacy, the lack of emotional connection, but the process has been so gradual that he accepts each new ‘status quo’ at face value, and learns to live with it. His marriage has been salami sliced back to a barely functional relationship, held together by the kids and memories of the good times. He thinks there is something wrong with him, and is feeling incredibly frustrated. You are about to destroy his world, but there is no other way to get through this.

 

The final truth you must grasp is the time scale involved. Most marital disagreements last barely a day, a week at most. The recovery process for an affair lasts not weeks, not months, but YEARS. Seriously, the catastrophic loss of trust, the undermining of the entire relationship is so severe that it takes what feels an impossibly long time to recover. I have been going through it for a year now, and I am nowhere near sufficiently recovered to say that my marriage is as good as it was before the affair.

 

OK, so enough of the doom and gloom. If you are still with me then presumably you want to know what I think you should do. Here goes…(incidentally the order IS important)

 

Firstly, end your affair. It will take courage and it will hurt like nothing else, but it MUST be done. For all the reasons above it is going nowhere, and, for the future, will be a powerful symbol to your husband that you realised that what you were doing was wrong. You will feel desperate to maintain some sort of relationship with the OM, but there must be ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT WHATSOEVER. You will feel a sense of panic, get irrationally emotional and terribly depressed, but these are the withdrawal effects of your addiction. They are unavoidable, so you must just suck it up.

 

Then you must tell your husband everything, and simultaneously be totally open with him. Your mobile must no longer be secret, likewise your e-mail. There must be no more unexplained absences, or any form of deception. TOTAL honesty is the only way you can even begin to build up what you have destroyed. Your husband will be shocked to the core of his being. He will be irrational, say many hurtful things and generally be a total bastard for several months. He may even try his hand at flirting with other women to prove that he is still the successful male he thought he was.

 

The most important thing to do during this period is NOTHING. DO NOT act on impulse, and do not take anything that either of you say too seriously. You are both on an emotional rollercoaster. Provided you follow the advice above you will gradually fall out of ‘love’ with OM, and a crushing sense of guilt will magnify your depression. Your husband will probably go into an emotional shock that will last several months. In that time he will oscillate violently from extreme affection to downright loathing. There will be many false dawns, and many times of mutual hopelessness. In all probability as your feelings about OM fade, so will your husbands for you. That is to be expected, and is precisely why impulsive acts are so destructive. He may choose to move out, and that will be a relief to you, as you will no longer face the consequences of your acts, but it will merely delay recovery. You have to live together, communicate and overcome all these hurdles.

 

Over time your emotional pendula will calm down, and you will lose the emotional drugs that enabled you to ignore reality during your affair. Then the magnitude of the damage to your marriage will become painfully obvious. You will be left with a husband whose feelings for you are ambiguous at best, children who will, in all likelihood, hate you if you have caused the breakup of their warm and safe family, and a circle of friends who will keep a very close eye on their husbands in your presence. Now the process of rebuilding can begin.

 

One final fact that you should be aware of. You may already know that 65% of adulterous marriages end in divorce. Not good news, but this masks the other statistic that when it is the wife who has been unfaithful this number rises to 85%. Whether you like it or not, you are in a deep, deep hole. I offer you my advice in the sincerest hope that you, like me, can become part of the 15%. Good luck.

[justice]

If you feel this strongly about staying away from the OM and working out your marriage, the best thing you can do is to work on your marriage with your whole heart and try your best to forget the OM ever existed. Chances are he was playing you anyway and you'd be best off with your husband. The spouses of wayward partners often end up being hurt and destroyed as a result of their partner's infidelity, so please consider this also.