I have no idea what to do? DH or OM?

[CheshireCat]

I really am in a mess.. I've been married 10 years, to a very good man. But have been having an affair for a year and a half.. He is single and wants to take on my 2 children, etc.. My husband wants to try and make a go of things.. but I just don't know what to do. He has a very high profile job, always, busy working away..and in the zone, I felt so so lonely..I have no family around..I feel I spent my 10 years being at home etc.

Am currently going to relate to sort my head out.. DH is waiting for me to sort myself out, and the OM is also waiting as well. :(

I agree with your first paragraph kepler

Appletrees
I am taking personal responsibility for it all.. I do accept the full blame. Yes it may seem self indulgent, I can see that.. It's not.. I envy the wife who has a man coming home to his family, and her, at 6 o'clock every day. And spends time just being around the house. Who doesn't have to go away abroad and leave her, even when pregnant and past her due date. I know I don't have money worries, and yes possibly that's the price me and the children have to pay.

I think what the OP means is that when your husband works away & communication is at it's lowest, being intimate is difficult.

I can relate to that, as when my husband worked away and came home expecting nookie I was often reluctant. However I am a great believer in 'use it or lose it' so when you have made the mistake of not allowing yourself to open up (pardon the pun) to your partner/husband after an absence it just gets worse..

Communication is very important for most women. Sex is mechanical for most men, with women it's not so much. Only when it becomes mechanical to them do the problems start. For most men, as long as the sex is happening they feel as if their marriage is happy.

For most women, if the communication stops so does the sex. it's a vicious circle, and unless you start communicating (not just talking) then it's gonna be over pretty soon.

So your children have met the OM for 30 mins and you have already decided they like him enough to uproot them with him - 30 mins is nothing!

I truly feel for your husband, not only has he worked hard to financially provide for his children, he has also provided for you so that you could stay home (although I suspect he meant for you to look after the house or children and not use the time to sleep with another man). Even if you were terribly bored you could have done many things, volunteered or found a part time job - a few hours in after school club would not have harmed your children.

If you had your childrens interests at heart you would not have had the affair. How can you be so worried that a little childcare would be bad for them yet you were seeing another man and planning to shatter their lives as they know it.

I am taking responsibility for all of it, I accept full blame.

D blonde
that is exactly the case.. If we had sex tonight, he would think everything back to normal.

Cheshire, if you were taking responsibility for all of it, you would let your husband know the full story, not just your Mills & Boon version of the OM, With responsibility comes consquences, you need to take some real responsiblity & tell the truth, today.

I also think you have to be realistic here, you may well not have been able to be a SAHM and had all that time with your children if your husband had come home by 6 on the dot. My husband certainly doesn't, and nor do many I know doing well-paid and high flying (or even just long hours manual) work. You made a deal with him by accepting his money and him financing your lifestyle, and if you want to renegotiate, all well and good, I think you should as you are very dependent on what he thinks (you say he wouldn't like you working in certain jobs, he wouldn't like you getting more than one horse). If you were more financially independent, you could make these choices more for yourself.

However, I don't get the impression you want to be financially independent, I get the impression that despite having two school-age children, you are happy not to be working and essentially living off your partners' earnings, and are working out how to get from one very well-paid man to another not so well-paid (but presumably solvent) man, and get half the house and a decent maintenance package at the same time. Somewhere along the line you have lost confidence you can do this for yourself, and are looking for a man to solve the problem (Xenia was right).

Actually, I think what would happen in reality if you jumped ship is that you would end up on your own, and you know that's the risk you take. Perhaps with maintenance, you would not be much poorer, if he's got a clever accountant, you may be much poorer and have to work. I think you'd get a lot out of it, not least a sense of purpose which you seem to have lost.

Before anyone says, but why shouldn't anyone be a SAHM, I agree, if that's the deal between the partners. But I get the feeling that if your husband knew you'd actually been having an affair for 18 months and sleeping with someone else, you know full well he's go mad (which is why you've implied it's only been a kiss- does anyone actually believe that?) thinking he'd been supporting you to stay home and have sex with another man (and yes, he would care about the sex!)

I do feel for you, and hope you work it out with your husband, it's all a bit Mills and Boon, he doens't seem like a person to me somehow (he's a 'good husband'- what's that?), perhaps you need to get to know him better too.

H M online. Of course I haven't made that decision based on that.. I haven't made any decision...

I was in what sounds like a similar situation to you Chesire, in that as my marriage failed (although I didn't want to admit it at the time) and I fell out of love with my husband, a male friend of ours, who did his best to help us with our troubles, essentially showed my husband up for what he was, and I very innapropriately fell in love with him and he became so frustrated with my husband, and caring of me, that he felt the same in return.

Our tales do differ though, firstly in that although I realised how I felt about OM, neither of us wanted to have an affair, and I could never have done that to DH (although coming that close was bad enough). Secondly, I was young and had no children or mortgage, thus making my decision much easier (especially as I could only see it getting worse if things were to continue along that vein). I realised (after much crying and un-biased counsell) that I no longer loved my DH (apart from all the other problems) and if I stayed with him, I was still betraying him by having even fallen in love with someone else behind his back.

I had nightmares for months after I told him it was over and the reasons why (including OM). It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, and I wondered if it would've been different if I had had children (I decided it probably would have been dragged out longer, but DH and I breaking up would have eventually happened anyway as I personally disagree with the 'staying together for the children' line except in certain circumstances). I still feel flashes of guilt even now for how badly I broke his heart, I think I always will, and although I doubt he'll ever be exactly happy about it, he now agrees that I did the best I could and although it hurt, he's glad I was honest.

Whatever you're decision, it must be yours and you must take the consequences, whether that be to make a go of your marriage and possibly live in unhappiness; to become a single mother and deal with the hardships that can bring or to leave for OM and the various issues that brings up for the children/you're own state of mind.

You must be strong and decide, 'I am doing insert course of action here because of these reasons and it's what I believe is right. If it comes back to bite me, I only have myself to blame.'

Not read whole thread but first two pages.

The decision you are asking about is not the decision you should be making. You have to decide whether your marriage has a future, can you and your husband work it out for the sake of both your happiness and your children's.

You have to decide if you want to be married or nor. Once you are not married then you decide if you want to be on your own or have a new partner.

You may find that your husband employs an au pair to have the kids with him, or insist on 50/50 contact/shared care. If everything he has worked for is taken away from him, he may prefer to invest his time in seeing the children as much as possible.

You need to ditch the OM and then decide if you want to work on your marriage and communication or you want to separate.

YOu need to be very careful too. He might have nistalled key stroke software on the home PC. He may well read this thread so if you've admitted here to more intimacy with the lover then he may find out. Mind you anyone with sense whose partner says I only kissed him/her knows they mean full blown affairs as people always try to make it look as little as possible.

Make sure you also have 100% knowledge of the family#s pensions, his income, get copies of his P60s if he is an employee and full details ofh is business if he is self employed in case divorce is in the offing. Children 13+ often can choose with whomt hey live. I know someone whose children stayed with the father. the mother was not too pleased.

Cheshire I haven't read all the posts just some.

I do understand your loneliness and need for affection - I have a DH who works very very long hours. However mine is not often away and I have told him that if he was I would really struggle to keep the relationship working. I don't condone your affair, but I see how you got there.

It seems to me that you do, deep down, still your husband. You say you used to adore him, you praise him in many ways throughout the thread. You just don't see enough of him; you have begun to focus on someone else; and the result is that you have forgotten how to feel loving towards him. But I think you could remember and re-connect with him if you really tried.

Could you go on dates? Regard dinner tonight as a first date? Talk about your shared history, things you did years ago when you were in love?

Obviously, a pre-requisite is that you stop seeing the OM. This will be hard for you. Of course it will. But ultimately what you are doing will blow your life (and many others) apart. You seem to think you could just take DH out of the picture and replace him with OM - it doesn't work like that. Everyone gets incredibly hurt, including the DCs.

I think another requirement is that your DH changes jobs. Seriously. I do not think it is unfair of you to ask him that. He is doing a great job of providing money, but not a great job of providing companionship and affection. He does need to make changes so that he can keep up with ALL his husbandly responsibilities, not just the financial ones. If that means earning less, so be it.

The third requirement is that you get some friends and interests of your own. That will mean you are less dependent on male approval and company and can cope better if your DH is working.

However, the first thing on the list is to stop seeing the OM.

The financial side of things is not the problem.. I would be ok, if I was by myself..even on little maintenance or without OM. I'm sorry I don't want to keep saying it...But it's not about me setting up another situation re my finances..

still love your husband

You might not be ok if your husband gets custody and the house. Its not always as simple as you think it could be.

CC - Have read the whole thread.
I think you could forget about the OM if you put your mind to it. I think he is a distraction which has filled the space available.
But I do think your DH has to pull his finger out this week end too. His absences are clearly not good for you. You want companionship and affection and you want him around you rather than putting so much emphasis on his work. I don't think the current arrangement is something you should 'put up with' as it's clear that what YOU need is someone round about you to spend time with and be kind to you (which is how/why OM got his feet in the door.) This is you and your marriage here, not anyone else's. Other people cope with things differently. I think you need your DH to spend more time with you, and I think you need to make that clear.
I tend to agree with minipie here.

I was in what sounds like a similar situation to you Chesire, in that as my marriage failed (although I didn't want to admit it at the time) and I fell out of love with my husband, a male friend of ours, who did his best to help us with our troubles, essentially showed my husband up for what he was, and I very innapropriately fell in love with him and he became so frustrated with my husband, and caring of me, that he felt the same in return.

Our tales do differ though, firstly in that although I realised how I felt about OM, neither of us wanted to have an affair, and I could never have done that to DH (although coming that close was bad enough). Secondly, I was young and had no children or mortgage, thus making my decision much easier (especially as I could only see it getting worse if things were to continue along that vein). I realised (after much crying and un-biased counsell) that I no longer loved my DH (apart from all the other problems) and if I stayed with him, I was still betraying him by having even fallen in love with someone else behind his back.

I had nightmares for months after I told him it was over and the reasons why (including OM). It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, the guilt was horrific . I still feel flashes of guilt even now for how badly I broke his heart, I think I always will, and although I doubt he'll ever be exactly happy about it, he now agrees that I did the best I could and although it hurt, he's glad I was honest.

I wondered at the time if it would've been different if I had had children and I decided it probably would have been dragged out longer, but DH and I breaking up would have eventually happened anyway. I personally don't agree with staying together for the sake of children, it's usually a much healthier and happy atmosphere once two unhappy parents (or even one unhappy at the other) are no longer living under the same roof.

Whatever your decision, it must be yours and you must take the consequences, whether that be to make a go of your marriage and possibly live in unhappiness; to become a single mother and deal with the hardships that can bring or to leave for OM and the various issues that brings up for the children/your own state of mind etc. (I've only mentioned the bad sides to these few options, but there good sides to each as well.)

Perhaps your decisions so far haven't been the best they could've been, there's nothing you can do about that now, you must move forward. You must be strong and decide, 'I am doing //insert course of action here\ because of these reasons and it's what I believe is right. If it comes back to bite me, I only have myself to account for it.'

Good luck with whatever decision you make. I'm afraid it's going to be difficult whatever you do.

Bubblewrapped. The only way I would not be ok is if he took the children. If he had the house financially I'd be ok. Don't obviously want to go into my full financial situ here.

I too have a husband who doesn't come home at 6 on any night. Quite often he's away from home and even if working locally he's not home before 7. I too am a sahm but I have three young children. It was our choice for me to stay at home and raise our children. Frankly though I have neither the time nor the energy to indulge in any extra marital activities.

On the other hand my husband made full use of his time away from home - the same old story, boredom, loneliness, lack of intimacy blah blah. Difficult to be intimate with someone you rarely see - that part I do fully understand.

I do understand how easy it is to lose the closeness, to take each other for granted. What I don't understand is why you think having an affair was going to make your situation any easier and why, even now, you're not being completely honest with your husband.

Your husband is not a stupid man presumably. He surely cannot believe that in 18 months all you've done is kissed this other man. My husband and I are now back together and trying hard to work things out but I would not have been able to do this without knowing everything about his affair - and I do mean everything. There is no way I would have believed that an 18 month affair would have resulted in a kiss only.

Personally I think you need to take some time out to decide what you want. Go away for a few days, leave your husband with the children and don't have any contact with the OM. As long as you're still in contact with him then your marriage has no chance.

You can regain intimacy with your husband but along with that has to come full disclosure - or you're not being fair to him.

Doh! Apologies for the double post. What a moron I am .

Cheshire: having read your request for help and your responses, I would say that you are a person who has never had to do anything, ie be forced through circumstances to work, care etc. Your life has landed neatly on your nice lace trimmed cushions. Even your relationship with your husband seems polite and nice. So your lesson is perhaps here, waiting for you to learn it.
I may be wrong but it makes no difference.
Don?t faff just do. Don't ask anyone here any more. You've heard it all. Your gut instinct is already telling you what to do.
And if you stay with your H learn Mandarin and open an ebay shop ? opportunities abound. That'll keep you busy.

Oh and as a bloke it?s refreshing to see the ladies on here not blame the man for a change

Best hang on to those kids then, after all they are your financial garuntee

So financially sounds fine. He is very very very unlikely to get the children as he's male and he works and you don't. In my case there was more of a risk as he spent more time than I did with them. I was exceptional. You don't need to worry about that although he might want them every other weekend and during the week when he's there and things like that. I doubt he is vindictive enough to commission reports showing you are mentally unstable and unable to have them and it is probably unlikely the children would refuse to move with you to another house or a tiny bed sit because they want to stay in their home. He might well be advised though not to move out of the family home until you've reached a financial settlement etc. so if you wanted quickly to be with the lover you might have to be the one moving the children out.

From the other side of divorce I must say it was much easier than I thought and the fmaily is much happier as a result and it is not always a bad thing by any means.

I think you should tell your dh what you have been up to then he can hopefully be well rid of you.

Fwiw I think introducing your children to the man shagging you behind their fathers back is disgusting.