Ruined my life I’m a stupid idiot

[Nope11]

Been with DH 14 years and the past year or so between us has been hell. I don’t feel loved, cared for, nothing. We sleep together 1/2 times a week. He’s always saying something about my weight. Just needed someone to talk to so I signed up to a dating website. Long story short me and someone ended up exchanging pictures/videos.

I feel utterly sick. I’m a horrible person and I’ll admit to what I did later on. If he leaves me and tells my family so be it. I deserve it.

I sound like I’m self pitying and maybe I am but I feel sick with my actions and will own up

It is cheating no matter how you look at it.
You have to decide if your marriage is worth keeping.
If you tell him do you think he will leave ?
I would not mention the pictures no matter what. Just say chatting to someone. But not met up.
Obviously he should not make negative comments about your appearance.

If its not worth saving then dont tell him anything . Just end the relationship. No point giving him things to use against you when it comes to your children or friends/family.
In future dont send vids/pics to random people. You must know they will be shared. And think how it will upset your children
My mum cheated and one of my siblings was only young and has never forgiven her.
I being the oldest understood things are never so simple.

Wait, hold up. You shag twice a week but because you can’t speak up for yourself, you joined a dating website to exchange nudes. Congrats 🥂

it's not cheating, it's just being tempted and going a bit too far.

Just stop now and move on.

Address the issues with your own DH and see if it's worth staying with or separating.

Thanks🥂

First of all, stop playing the victim.
You are not the victim here, your DH is.

Secondly, delete all your accounts and make sure never to do it again.

Thirdly, you’re not happy and you’ve tried. So it’s time to separate and have the conversation about how that’s going to happen.

I'm really struggling with your post in general here OP

You say he makes comments about your weight but you're still having sex a couple of times a week. So the comments can't be that bad or he's being coercive and effectively abusing you - which is it?

Every comment that has been made asking for more detail on how he treats you, whether he's abusive etc, you have ignored - why?

You wanted someone to talk to but signed up for a dating website - that's not someone to talk to, that's to rub your ego. And women with esteem issues generally wouldn't send nudes to someone they don't know.

You don't mention your kids because it's 'not relevant' but you're effectively talking about exploding their whole life because you feel bad?

This comes across as someone who has done something a bit dodge and is hoping to get MN on side to make them feel better

And yes, it is cheating

it's not cheating, it's just being tempted and going a bit too far.

Good lord, your bar is so low in your relationships, it sounds like you've actually dug a hole and buried it.

Agree, in an ideal world you would have either walked away or addressed the issues in the marriage, but sometimes both of those things take two people to act respectfully.

To my mind, you were clearly seeking a confidence boost and source of emotional connection and to feel attractive that's why you signed up to online dating as opposed to a more platonic platform. I think your best option now is to either leave the marriage and start afresh or you come clean and ask that you both attend marriage counselling and for a commitment to both doing things differently going forwards. At the end of the day, if your dh is criticising your weight and shutting you out but still expecting sex twice a week then I think you need to consider how healthy this dynamic is for your kids growing up watching. It sounds like it's become completely toxic between you both and really, mainly I think if it were me I'd take this as a sign that you need to leave before this marriage destroys you. I'd actually say nothing, ask for a divorce and leave. My only reason for not coming clean is I think if it comes out that you've essentially cheated (and personally I would see this as a form of cheating because of the intimacy and betrayal it involves) I think that could really affect your relationship with your children. Obviously your situation is complex but this makes it very easy for you to be labelled as the reason why their parents marriage failed.

If you want to really try then you take the risk and be honest and say you're only prepared to go forwards with counselling to try and actually change things because it's very clear you can't continue as you are.

I also think, when you say you ruined your life - in what capacity? By marrying someone who doesn't treat you well, care for you, and bully's you, or because you sent intimate images to another person?

Either way, it's not life ruining. Life changing maybe, but it doesn't sound like your status quo was great to begin with was my point. So maybe change is what you need.

For future reference, the Samaritans are not just for suicidal thoughts.
Don't beat yourself up OP
We have all made mistakes

Honestly, if you were a man, you’d have the entire thread saying how terrible you are. Learn to speak up, and leave him.

Stop, just stop.
it is cheating, if a woman came on here saying her dh had done this i bet you would not being saying the same 🙄

Honestly it just sounds like you hate yourself and expect everyone else to.

A man loving you or not won't fix that.

My guess is that you subconsciously wanted to end this miserable relationship you’re in. Don’t fight it now!

Said no-one on Mumsnet to a married man sending dick pics and getting explicit videos from other women EVER.

You cheated, you need to decide if you want to save your marriage.
you shouldn’t have done what you did, but now you can’t change it.
all you’ve said is he comments on your weight, but what are these comments? Is he abusive, is he just saying he’s not happy with your weight etc ( i wouldn’t be happy but not abusive).
is your marriage worth saving, or do you want to save it more importantly?
if you don’t want too, there is no point telling him just to hurt him, as then there will be no way you two will be able to coparent amicably ( and unfair too him also).

It's a really shitty thing to do which you acknowledge.
I wouldn't tell him though. What is the point in that.
However, you need to delete whatever apps you have and never do it again and then do some serious self-reflexion on why it happened and what you want and need in your life. What was the reason for doing it? What was missing in your relationship with your DH that made you feel you had no option but to cheat on him by getting involved with someone else on a dating app?

If you can talk to him about what is missing and what you could both do to improve the relationship then this could be very helpful and could save your relationship. But if you can't do that or he won't engage with discussions etc then the best thing to do would be to split up and then you are both free to find other people who meet your needs better.

I voted YABU for being so hard on yourself.

Your marriage is shit and you are miserable and your husband sounds like a nasty bully trying to make you feel bad about yourself.

Started thinking about what you want from your life and working towards that.

Oh for goodness sake stop acting the innocent and face up to your marriage problems. Signing up to a dating agency because you felt you had problems is such a cop out, and then you've sent naked pictures of yourself to another man. Or it could be anyone really. That's cheating if my DH had did that to me!

How is the op being hard on herself? It's just a pity party. She seems genuinely shocked that her recklessness would have any fallout for her kids.

I'd echo other responses... I can't see any positive outcome from telling your husband about this, he will probably react horribly (assuming from how you've described him, obviously I don't know that) and it'll be difficult to come back from. I'd just sit him down and talk to him about the relationship more generally and outline how you want things to change, then go from there. Come off the dating site. You really haven't ruined your life, but you might if you talk about it. However, this should be an eye-opener that you're clearly not happy with how things are now and they need to change.

You seem to want to tell him because you don't like feeling guilty. Telling him will not change that. You will probably just compound that guilt by triggering the break up of you relationship. In this case he will blame you solely and will not accept any part in the failure.

He is now going to value you more because someone asked you for photos.

Delete the apps and all trace of your stupidity. Shut up and salve your guilt by finding a constructive way forwards, either together or apart.

For the person who said about Samaritans that was a really weird response 🙄 I think we all know what OP meant when she said to talk to...

OP yes u effed up but you wouldn't have done it if you weren't feeling so isolated and DH wasn't making crappy comments about your weight. If you need to get it off your chest and confess then do so, whatever happens next is not just up to your DH but you too. I can't help but wonder you want to tell him so he will leave you and that in itself might be an even bigger weight off your chest. I might be wrong. Either way you aren't happy and definitely need to tell him about that at least.

Youngest is autistic and would have no clue or not if DH was here or not. It would probably affect eldest which of course I feel awful about but why should I be unhappy in a relationship

So joining a dating site and exchanging dodgy pictures was your solution to being unhappy? Why?

Probably affect your eldest? What do you mean probably.

You're oldest would have their dad leaves and would have mum caring for a profoundly autistic sibling, who is so bad he or she wouldn't know if the dad was there or not

You think that set up would probably affect your eldest.

Not saying you should be unhappy in a relationship. But your decision making is pretty poor going on a dating app an exchanging nudes is pretty stupid.