I’m cheating what to do

Would you think like that if it were you in her situation?
Somehow I doubt it.
I've known a lot of male colleagues who had flings and none seemed to lose any sleep over it and most are still with their other half so most likely kept their mouth shut. Men have a habit of holding women to higher standards than they hold themselves.

I don't think all the family has to know about your affair - that's your call and your call alone.

Obviously you know you've done wrong, but I don't see what good can come of you telling everyone you're a cheat.

Yeah, you'll get what you deserve when everyone is angry at you, but your husband will likely be even more devastated and your children may stop talking to you. I don't see how it is the best thing for them to know their mum, who presumably they trust, could be so deceitful.

Separate, yes. Then take some time on your own to see what it is you actually want.

I understand the AP wanting you to separate so you can be together, but I don;t know why he thinks the best thing is to tell your family about what the pair of you have been up to. Surely he knows you are going to hurt your children and husband? I would think twice about whether he's actually as nice as you think he is.

Yeah but you don't know that, maybe she hit on him? did all the running?

If he has hung around for this amount of time, maybe he'll be a keeper, most men who hit on married women, move on once they get a shag.

Sometimes people marry the wrong person and then find love elsewhere but so long as she stays in this loveless marriage, she'll never know for sure.

That’s right she does only have one life and so does her husband, so she needs to stop being a coward and own up to her husband about what she has done and let him know what is going on in his marriage.

OP grow a spine, do your husband a favour, have a little bit of respect for him and tell him what you’ve done, then go find some respect for yourself. Imagine having someone in your life for 25 years and cheating on them. If you didn’t love you husband then bloody well leave, he at least deserves that. If you didn’t want people to know you were cheating then you shouldn’t have cheated in the first.

Of course he’s nice and generous. He’s not living with you and three children. He’s not known you for 20plus years. It won’t last and you will have ruined everyone’s life including your own. Stop the affair

First things first. Do you want your marriage to end? Do you want to go to counselling and try to find the love you once had for your husband or are you done?

If you do want your marriage to end, do you want it to end because you want to be with the new man? As that's not a given. You don't have to be with him if you don't want to.

But the new man has made you realise you need to make some very hard decisions, and there will be horrible fall out to whatever decision you make. But the time has come to decide. Only you know what you need to do to move forward.

All the best.

You have to think about this as if the affair partner were not in the mix, would you still be taking steps to end your marriage which clearly died a while ago now? You've not known this new man all that long and you certainly don't yet know him well enough to be sure that your relationship with him will be a successful one. If you disclose the affair to him or your parents, it will be used as a stick to beat you with on religious grounds and guilt you into staying in the marriage which would soon become hellish for all of you, especially the children so if you can keep it quiet I would. The core truth is your marriage is over, affair or not. I would end the affair and the marriage. If the AP is genuinely a good man and in it for the long run, he'll wait it out until you're free and ready to start afresh.

OP from one who’s been there and done it in identical circumstances - end the affair, end your marriage, be alone and then see where it takes you.

Do NOT tell your husband about the affair because your affair partner told you to. He is unlikely to be the person you think he is.

My world imploded when I did exactly that and the hurt and damage I did to my ex husband and children still haunts me.

I learned valuable lessons from this and 6 years later I choose to still be single.

I am fortunate that my exH and I are good friends now after some turbulent years, he completely accepts his part in how bad our marriage had become, how utterly miserable and downtrodden I felt and why I felt trapped and had my, as he put it, “head turned”. He did actually say he just wished it had been with someone worthwhile rather than the absolute narcissistic asshole that it was!

My children were adult and then 16 and 18 and I am only now in the last 12 months actually in a good place with them. They were incredibly angry with me very blinkered as to how unhappy I was as we kept the state of our marriage quiet from them but the fact I had an affair is unforgivable in their eyes.

There is no excuse for an affair if I could turn the clock back I would have found a way to end the marriage and definitely definitely not had an affair.

I am one of those rare people that would never ever ever do it again and actually cannot believe that I did it. To this day, my exH blames the menopause - It was certainly the most out of character thing I’ve ever done in my life!

Whatever the reason for me doing it, I don’t know. I am normally a very family orientated homebody who loves nothing more than taking care of people..

That got very long what I’m trying to say is - Nice people sometimes do shit things and please follow the simple advice I said in my first paragraph.

What to do? Stop cheating. It doesn’t end well, ever.

No I cant say I have cheated on my husband, as rare as that appears to be by your thinking, if that makes me perfect than so be it I can still sleep at night

Thank God people like you don't run the world or we would still be burning people at the stake in public. If you have nothing constructive to contribute, please f off.

This is one of the worst examples of moral and logical reasoning I have seen on Mumsnet. She knows she is doing something 'wrong'. That doesn't mean the entire world needs to know about it. Ever done anything wrong yourself? Want everyone including your children to know? Let me guess. you're little Miss Perfect and you are an open book blah blah blah. Well, at least she isn't boring.

Lucky OP! I need to up my game and stop looking like Miss Trunchbull at the gym, none of the hot guys there ever approach me!

You’re another who wants their cake and eat it as well. You sneak around enjoying the attention from this other bloke yet fearful of your parents reaction! As if their opinion and reaction is more important than your husband’s and children!

You are right to feel ashamed. Leave your husband, ditch this new squeeze and spend time alone, you need time to set new moral boundaries, as presently you do not appear to have any.

Mine is mostly just pairs of roided up gay men, in pairs, yelling encouragement at each other lmao

If you are not doing anything wrong then you have no reason not to tell everyone, if you cared about your children you would have left your husband first then had a normal relationship

If you use the old cliche 'I am not cheating on my children just my husband' then there would be no reason to not to tell the children

So if you tell people now and who will live where? will you have to uproot your children, whether you stop it or now your marriage appears to be over so mabe try and put your children first?

Absolutely agree with this 10 000%

What their mum is like and what she has done? Oh you mean, birth them, raise them, stay with their very probable lump of clay of a father despite being soul suckingly unhappy so they could have a decent childhood? You mean that?

Stop?

Fgs stop cheating on him you met at the gym 🤮

I also just wanted to say OP: NEVER come on a site like this and expect actual support or mercy. Because these people don't know you, don't love you and have not lived your life. It's so easy for them to get on their high horses and shame you and tell you what to do like critical mothers or haughty school teachers. I know from experience that life is hard and very long marriages are extremely complicated. That is why I never judge people, men or women, that have affairs. It is simply none of my business. But most people are not like that and they love to judge and be superior. You don't need other people's justification or approval. You can do what you want. Infidelity is not illegal, you haven't murdered anyone. Be careful who you tell what to.

By the sounds of this man, it might be time to end it as he is getting a bit controlling. I do think you need to leave your husband and maybe start preparing for that now and as others have said spend some time alone or just in casual relationships. This man made you feel alive when you felt dead. For that you can thank him. Try and exit your marriage with dignity and keep yourself safe. x

You don't have to tell him about the affair but it sounds like if you want to be with the other guy long term you need to leave your husband.

I realise taking ownership of the situation seems a bit overwhelming and not a little scary but you are past the point of no return now, unless you want to bin off the other man and continue with the husband you can't bear to be around always worrying that he might find out what's happened anyway.

I was in a different situation to you in an abusive marriage with a man my parents had warned me to have nothing to do with. However they too were religious and even though they knew how, awful my marriage was, were still quite hostile when they found out I'd finally left him and was planning divorce. My mum blamed me for her not being able to go to church. She said she was worried someone there might ask about me and she'd be too ashamed to tell them I had a broken marriage as it was so disgraceful in her eyes. Eventually my parents got over it and so will yours.

You can't let fear of everyone's reactions leave you stuck in this intolerable situation. I'm not saying things won't be difficult for you for a while but you know what you have to do. Good luck - I hope things work out for you in the long term.

What to do?

1 - Stop cheating on your husband. You are taking his right away to informed consent and subjecting him to possible STIs and other diseases. It doesn't matter if you are having sex with him or not. It is deceit and disloyalty. He deserves better than your indifference and hate.

2 - Get a divorce. Your husband deserves to find someone who loves him and not be in a farce of a marriage. You are lying everyday to him by pretending to be invested in your marriage when you are not.

3 - Stop making excuses and giving your reasons as there is no excuse for cheating. It doesn't matter how unhappy you are. You should have ended your marriage before jumping into bed with someone else.

4 - End this before your children or husband find out. It will destroy them and ruin the relationship you have. You have a last chance to be honest. Tell your DH the truth and accept whatever happens and try to rebuild from there.

5 - Get therapy and stop depending on a man for your happiness. He didn't rescue you. He preyed on a lonely married woman and is a predator at best. A good man does not have an affair with a married woman. He has poor morals and is a liar at best. You don't really know him, just what he wants to show you.

6 - Accept that you made a conscious decision to have an affair. It is not just the cheating but all the lies you told you family to do it. You put your affair above what it might do to your husband and children. Stop blaming others and understand the decision to cheat was yours alone. No one forced you to do it.

7 - Accept that your poor choices may have alienated your children and family. You should have thought about your children before you started your affair. The truth will come out and your children are old enough to put two and two together and figure out you were cheating on their father.

8 - Stop playing the victim. You aren't a victim here. Your husband and kids are the only casualties here of your destructive choices. You are not a martyr and it is disingenuous to act like you had no choice in this.