I’m cheating what to do

[ashamedclown]

Hi all. For the last couple of years I have realised fallen out of love with my DH. We’ve been married for twenty five years and got married in our late teens and we both came from religious households (I am no longer religious myself). We have three children together (19, 17, and 16). I don’t hate him but I just no longer can stand being around him. I am ashamed but for the last nine months I have been having an affair. He’s not in a relationship and he is generous and kind. He says now that I have to tell my husband about us so that we can officially get together but this would mean admitting to what I’ve done. I don’t know my children or parents would react to me having done something so horrible. What should I do?

Op it's no wonder you can't stand being around your husband, you're investing all your energy into the other guy, you'll be looking at him with rose tinted glasses while focusing on your husbands negatives to help you feel justified in your actions to appease your own guilt while also projecting your guilt onto him.

I agree you only get one life and you deserve to be happy, but you don't get to go it at the direct expense of someone else's wellbeing. You need to end the marriage if you don't want to be married - affair aside. But equally if you're having sex with this guy and having sex with your husband you're removing his ability to give informed consent. You're lying and gaslighting him and you'll get flamed on here because this is really harmful stuff for the other person. If you don't want to tell your husband then at the very least you should do an sti test to make sure you are clean and haven't given him anything since you started sleeping with another person.

Whether or not you tell him is up to you, but you can't stay in the marriage unless you're going to end the affair. Time to put your big girl pants on and do what you need to, to end this mess. Either you leave and you move out on your own initially and then announce the relationship later, or you need to sit your husband down and tell him the truth and you take what others think on the chin and be accountable for the choices you've made. You weren't happy but you handled it badly. Own your shit.

Hmmm
you need to be careful here. Your teens are at an age where they could judge you extremely harshly with lifelong consequences.

you should be very careful about not appreciating what you have until you lose it

And be ready for it to go to shit with the other man once it isn’t this little bubble isolated from reality (ie it comes out).

This OP's husband is not an abusive alcoholic, though. I'm not sure why people are being so sympathetic to her.

What does that have to do with anything??? If you're in love then that's great, end your relationship and start a wonderful new one and go and live your best life. You don't need to lie and sneak and betray and gaslight anyone in the process. Your feelings towards the new partner or how well they treat you matter not one iota when it comes to being accountable for how you treat the person you're married to.

I think that the person you are married to, and I am assuming the OP is in a monogamous relationship with, is entitled to the truth if you enter into a relationship with another person. Surely that is a really basic principle of marriage?

Of course ideally you wouldn’t do it in the first place, it is one of the worst ways in which you can betray someone.

100%. These grubby little affairs rarely stand up to reality.

Ignore @lisar47. They are on the wind up, making post after post of nonsense.

So end your relationship with your husband this weekend.

What you choose to tell him and your family is up to you and no-one’s business here.

You have fallen out of love with your husband? The first question you need to ask yourself is does that matter. Are you still friends? Do you still coparent well? Can you see yourself sharing a life with him once the children have moved out? If the honest answer is no, then end your marriage. You shouldn’t leave for your affair partner. You should leave because your marriage is truly done.

whatever decision you make, you need to end the affair for now. Your children are going to have a much more difficult time processing the end of your marriage if you jump from your marriage to a relationship with your affair partner. They will need real time to deal with the changes, even though they are older. If the affair partner truly loves you, he will understand you need a couple of years to get your life in order before you can rekindle the relationship.

This.

Even if the OP's marriage is a wash, I agree with you that she needs to be very careful. She can end her marriage respectfully, but the sneaking around is reprehensible. Also, someone upthread made the excellent point that her own FOO are unlikely to take her side if they are religious. They will likely back her husband.

What should you do?

Forget the affair bloke for a while and concentrate hard on yourself and becoming completely independent in every respect….reliant on nobody except yourself for every single thing, especially finances. That will be hard if you have three children to support through uni etc. But that’s what you must think about and work to achieve.

So then, when you have all future life-plan solutions carefully and meticulously mapped out successfully and readily achievable with no help from husband or affair partner, you will truly be in a good position to choose which man you want to continue your life with…if either still fit the bill that is.
Good luck !

Exactly this.

Why are you still with your husband if you don’t love him?

End the affair.
Break up with your husband.
Stay single for 6 months.
Start things up again with the new man.
In that order.

You're either brave (or stupid!) for posting this, but anyway, you do need to come clean. To your husband and your kids. Affairs are unlikely to play well but what's done is done, but my advice would be just to own it and not to try and blame anyone else.

Don't be so naive!

Is this satire?

I would be so embarrassed to admit that I’d cheated in a relationship.

I can’t imagine being so weak that I have to stay in a relationship I wasn’t happy in because I was too afraid of being single, but then act desperate around any other man to show me a bit of attention.

Have some self respect.

Wouldn't a nine month affair be just as hilarious if the sexes were reversed!

Mumsnet is brilliant.

" I've got 3 kids and I've been having an affair for 9 months with a bloke from the gym"

" OOOh go you! how big are his muscles!"

What do you think "I'm cheating" means exactly?
It's right there in the thread title.

Not that generous and kind if he's blackmailing you into telling your husband, is he?

I completely agree but to be fair I think that poster is very young and so may not have had a bf yet or fully grasp the situation.

She’s going to have a shock though.