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Relationships

affair heartbreak but dont know how to stop it

64 replies

posypoppy · 20/04/2013 16:59

Hi new here, and desparately wanted to come on and post, as i think someone may have some understanding and advice i am too confused at the moment to cope with really harsh critisim, though know i deserve it.
I am in sexless marriage, have been together 19 yrs, DH is nice man and great father to dds. But he just is asexual, as i hit 40 i lost weight, became more confident, wanted more i guess , he likes our staid dull life in the country andi want interseting travel, cities, people. So i did something i am not proud off and i understand if people want to flame me...but anyway i will say ...i met OM through an online site for married people ( i have now read some of the posters on here who found their husbands doing this and i realise how truely awful i have been). Suffice to say i just wanted some fun, some escapism, etc. And then we fell in love, well we thought we did. Fast forward 18 months , we were besotted, OM was always much more emotionally involved than me, he drove that side of things. At christmas time he started joking about us being together forever....i did wonder were this was going , as up until then we had both been adamant we would not break up our stable families. Neither of us bad mouthed our spouses, but occassionally i got comments about his wife which led me to believe she was very needy and he didnt get much time to relax do stuff he wanted etc. he works very long hrs, is extreamly successful, and she likes the lifestyle that gives. There is a lot more but i might give away who we are in RL , i dont know if she reads this stuff. So we get seen out having a drink by someone who knows them, that person tells his wife. It was only a drink....but wife goes ballistic and he tells all....including how we met ...i dont know why he didnt try to do damage limitation . She threw him out but he was leaving that day to go away for a week on business, cue a week of heartfelt emails back and forth , he was contemplating leaving , would i - yes....but the kids...in the end he went home, she took him back. That was 7 weeks ago, after the first weekend i emailed him and said i was walking away, we both needed that, he wanted to do the right thing for his family and me mine, and i wanted him to be happy. It was the hardest thing i have done, he lasted 36 hrs before was back in touch, and since we have been tooing and froing, hot cold txts and emails, i have tried stopping and he just reels me back in with a cute txt , and then off he goes again being cold and distant and then loving and fun. so enough i decide and ask to meet him...that is ignored ...it reached a head last week, he was away and i went to meet him. He emailed me the night before, saying he realised his behaviour had hurt me , he was sorry, he had been to councelling etc with wife, knows he doesnt want a divorce as doesnt want his children affected. no mention of loving wife but for 4 weeks hasnt said he loves me either. In the email he lays out the 2 options to us, one we continue to have a realtionship or find a way to, but this will be hard as he is being scrutinised , and asked questions all the time, it would be with a
" different intensity and different emotions etc etc for the time being "
and he could see that would be hard for both of us but mostly me . or we walk away which he said he feared would be too hurtful for both of us, and he really wanted the first option. So i went to him, we spent the night togther but it was odd, we had sex but it wasnt like before, it felt cold and functional, he held me for a bit and then i said " that was a bit crap" and we smiled and laughed , then we got talking , really really talking, we laughed as well and it was nice. He told me he had changed, how he could see the man he was 2 yrs ago is not the man he wants to be, he just cant figure out what kind of man he does want to be, he told me how hard life was at home, we were not looking for sympathy, we both acknowledged what we did has devastated someone else. he said it was still hour by hour stuff...and he just doesnt know what the future holds, he told me how hard he finds it to hear me being described in some unpleasent ways by his wife and how he tries to answers her questions without destroying all our memories despite this causing a lot of problems, but he could not answer my question that if he was jumping through all the hoops, trying to do everything he could to make it work at home why was he still wanting a relationship with me ? and it couldnt be just the sex, because if we do continue we will be months and months before we can spend time together again like that. But in all this he never said once what his feelings for me are, wether he has any ? wether he still loves me a bit, wether he misses me etc. However this man is very emotionally closed usually , and last 7 weeks must have been hell, so i can understand a bit. so the next morning we had sex again, and it was ok, and then we showered etc, and after i left he sent a txt saying " i dont know what to say except thankyou". i was vile back said some horribly things, but he kept txting all day and all day yesterday, funny chatty ones, but didnt give up and eventually i txted back and off we go again. I know this is really long , sorry, but i just dont know what to do ...i really contemplated leaving for him and him for me but in the end we didnt ....even though we both say we could see we would be fabulous together , we just couldnt do it to all our children, we both could see that also a lot of the feelings when you are in an affair are just due the dopamine levels in your brain being high and arent real feelings, i have never lived with him, never had to pick up his socks ....i said this and he laughed and got out of bed on wednesday night and picked up all my clothes, and hung up my dress....and said " there i can do it for you". basically mumsnetters i dont know how to stop this....i dont really know what he is thinking...am i just a back up plan if his marriage fails ? If a marriage is going to break up because of an affair how long does that take ? when do spouses get over it ? I am worried his wife will change and he will fall back in love with her ...and i will get hurt all over again....you can judge me if you like but i am struggling so hard with my hurt, his hurt, his wifes hurt, i am really not a bad person . so advice whatever it is.

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scaevola · 20/04/2013 17:09

Oh dear.

This man just isn't available. He's both married and 'emotionally closed' and plays games. This situation is only going to get more harmful to you.

Is your DH and marriage really as bad as you say? Or have you rewritten you memories to justify having an affair? What could happen in your marriage if you put just a fraction of the time and emotional energy you've given a third party into it instead?

Or if that's a lost cause, then answer lies in leaving both men. Then take the time to find yourself, so you can make the choices that will bring you the future you really want.