Mabel, thank you for saying that. I am really glad that I've been able to be useful in some way.
MN offers a great deal of support and help in a variety of ways. I think that for me, reading the experiences of others has helped me to get my head around my past behaviour, face up to my own weakness/selfishness, see what got me to 'that place' and hopefully clear my vision so that I will never again let it happen.
I do forgive myself now, because I don't think there is any point in self-flagellation - it can be as self-indulgent as the thing you did in the first place. But I do not condone what I did or think that there was any excuse. I was single and I fell in love with a MM, and I didn't deal with that as I should have done.
I should have withdrawn from seeing or speaking to him immediately. He told me that he had strong feelings for me and again, I should have withdrawn, but I didn't. Out of loneliness, weakness and a basic refusal to look what I was doing in the eye, I kept telling myself that we could continue to be friends.
It took me some weeks to gather the strength and common sense to be able to call a halt and say that we had to stop being in contact.
I don't think you can control your feelings, but I do think you can control how and if you act upon them.
I chose to allow a situation to continue that I knew was wrong, because spending time with this person made me feel so happy and good. And nothing that I would have thought would stop me actually did. I told myself:
He's married.
He's capable of betraying and lying to his wife.
He would be willing to conduct a full-blown affair if I said yes.
But it was as if I were in a bubble and those words were bouncing off the outside of it.
In the end, two things gave me the strength/determination I needed. Those were:
The thought that I would never be able to simply walk down the street holding his hand. I didn't want to have a relationship that could not be open to the world's view.
A passage in a particular book where a character talks about rules being there for when it is hard to do the right thing, not when it's easy. That resonated hugely with me.
I don't regret the feelings I had about this man in and of themselves. I did genuinely love him. But I could have done that at a distance. I am very sad and disappointed in myself that I did not immediately do what I believed was the right thing and break off contact.
I lost respect and admiration for myself, and nothing will ever change that now. It is not a pleasant thing to live with. I have chosen to try to learn from it rather than ignoring it or pretending it never happened. I want to make sure that it can never happen again.
I have learned a lot of hard lessons through this experience and through my choices. I've realised that I am capable of acting against my own conscience and better judgement. I think I have come to understand a little better how people make the choice to walk into situations that from the outside seem utterly mad or stupid.
We are all capable of doing things that we consider 'wrong'. Feelings can be deceptive in that something can 'feel right' and yet be wrong. I am not talking about legally wrong - I mean the kind of wrong where someone innocent gets hurt and where you do damage to your own sense of self.
It was totally my own doing, and I had to live with the consequences. Without meaning to romanticise it, which is the last thing I intend, I had my heart broken. That wouldn't have happened or at least been so painful if I had cut contact the instant I realised what I was feeling. It is done now, and I have to live alongside it. I don't condone what I did, and I have tried hard (and continue to try) to understand why I let it happen so that I will never make a similar mistake. (I daresay there are rafts of other mistakes I'll make, of course, but I'm one down.)
I have never and will never go into any more detail about my situation on here, because I have no idea if his wife is a mumsnetter. If she is, I think it would be deeply hurtful to read about what I felt and thought, and would cause her completely unnecessary pain. This may sound over-cautious for an anonymous site, but I behaved with an appalling lack of consideration for her at the time, and I will not risk causing her any further hurt.
Sorry, that was a bit of a mammoth post, but I was touched by your comment and I wanted you to understand that MN has helped me to see many things about my situation more clearly - not only my own actions, but also the fact that he was following a pattern that many men before him have used. I hope that it can continue to help you too.
The way to stop something happening again is to understand how and why it happened in the first place, and work on that. MN gives us insights into other situations, choices and consequences, and is an amazing resource.