WWIFN will you come and talk to me please?

[howdiditcometothis]

OK - I recognise that you probably despise someone like me. There is a back story on here but I won't bore you with the full details except to say I have had an emotional affair. I'm trying hard to get to the other side of it and fix things. I am interested in your view that the problem is with the person who had the affair. I know it isn't my DH and it is me that is the problem. But I don't know how to fix myself. I'm such a fuck up, I don't know where to start. I want to fix things.

I read all these threads for clues. I've never done anything immoral before - people would be so shocked and disgusted by my betrayal.

How do I flush out the problems? How can I make it up to him and make it right?

Howdi you say he "lost" 2 earlier jobs and that the performance management process was interrupted by his sick leave.

Can you tell us a bit more about how he lost those jobs - do you mean he was sacked because of performance or conduct issues? And what are the current performance management issues? Do you suspect there are reasons other than genuine illness, for why he hasn't been at work?

How does his competence/conduct at work contrast with how he was when you first met him? Has he changed WRT his work ethic?

You say you feel he has let you down and that his choices have lessened yours. Can you explain how?

Also, how do you feel when you read posters referring to him as a "provider"? How much have you wanted to assign him this role in the marriage? How does he see his role?

And how has all this affected your respect and desire for him?

First job was a big shock - he had a fixed term contract that wasn't renewed. Don't want to say too much as divulging lots of personal stuff here and afraai of being identified. But it is very very unusual to not be kept on in these particular circs due to the amount of investment made in the individuals during the initial term of the contract. Out of a large group he was the only one and this was pre credit crunch. I was absolutely horrified at the time and so angry on his behalf - thought a big mistake had been made.

There were a few alarm bells when we were living together but I only really twigged them in hindsight. He would call in sick when he had a bit of a sniffle and then take himself out for the day - I was horrified at this - have v strong work ethic and would never do that. I forced him to go in on quite a few occasions when he wanted to ring in poorly.

Second job - he was threatened with performance management. That was started and then credit crunch started to bite and he was made redundnant. This was after a long and awful period where I tried to get to the bottom of the problems and shore him up to get on top of things at work. I was desparate that he shouldn't lose it. Felt it would set an ongoing precedent and he needed to prove to himself that he could turn it round. The redundnacy was clearly used to get rid of people they didn't want rather than a true programme - which came later. Luckily it helped him save face - less stigma to being made redundant.

And now - he is facing perfomrance management. He seems unable to address the issues and I think he's in the wrong sort of job. I've said I'll stand by him with whatever he decides to do. I will carry on working FT while he retrains but that we do need to act because this limbo is unbearable- he needs to start thinking about the future. I've been trying to get him to make a plan for over a year now and I'm exhausted with it. He won't plan anything while he is low and ill. And then I feel like a witch for suggesting that he should.

The work issues have been a big shock to me. We met in an academic situation and he was very bright. He had some issues with the vocational elements of the course and I remember being mildly surprised and helping him out with it. But I think I was blinded by the Oxbridge thing and assumed he would excell.

The work ethic gulf between us has become more apparent over the years. Unfortunately this is to do with how he has been brought up. I will always go into work - I've had one day off ill in the last 4 years and that was due to the fact that I couldn't leave the bathroom. If he feels off colour he sees it as his right to take the time off. Regardless of what might be on his desk for the day. I suppose that is fair enough but so many times when he's done that he'll go out and I think that's out of order. If you're too ill to work then you should be at home. That's another story I suppose but it has caused rows before when I've refused to call in for him or been annoyed at him taking time off. His long term sick period at his current role started within days of them announcing performance management. He initially had 2 weeks off which then turned into over 6 months. I suppose that part of my failure to sympathise and look after him is that I feel he feels validated in not facing up to his problems at work by having a sick note. I don't think he'll get better until he addresses his problems at work face on and either leaves and does something different or turns things round.

Now - I'm not saying that the anxiety hasn't deeply affected him. It has and I do feel for him but I can't help feeling like it is something else to hide behind and not take on real life.

Meanwhile I have to keep everything going.

By choices - I suppose its unfair to call it a choice but I think he has allowed himself to opt out and justified this to himself on eth grounds that he is ill. I have no such choice to opt out.

I only ever wanted a partnership of equal partners. It is important to me to be able to contribute. I wasn't looking for a provider as such but I did want to share that responsibility and it would have been nice to have felt looked after in that sense when I was pregnant. I'm too scared to fall pregnant and go through similar. Our relationship is too bad to bring another child into it in any event.

We actually talked about how unhappy we were both feeling yesterday. It devolved into a screaming match - he pulled the drawers out of the kitchen and threw then across the room. This was after screaming at me calling me something horible in front of DD in the car earlier in the day and violently pulling over and storming off. But - prior to the shouting I thought there was some progress - I said that I didn't feel very looked after or protected and felt responsible for everything (I've probably not said as much before), that it didn't make me feel very womanly or worth looking after. He said that me earning so much more then him didn't make him feel much of a man.

I respect him for the things he does well. He is a doting and attentive and hands on Dad. I have lost all desire. And I have tried and tried with that but I feel nothing on the rare occasions that we go there.

And thanks WWIFN and everyone. this is helping me see things more clearly and is helping (if painful) more than I imagined.

Although I'm now concerned that I'm blaming DH which was the exact opposite of where I wanted to get to.

You're not blaming, you're just being honest and answering questions. Don't censor yourself, keep going.

Can I ask, how did you meet OM? Don't think you've ever told us that.

Howdi you said: By choices - I suppose its unfair to call it a choice but I think he has allowed himself to opt out and justified this to himself on eth grounds that he is ill. I have no such choice to opt out.

Howdi you do have a choice. But whether you could go through with it is another matter.

That choice is whether you would prefer to work p/t. From what you say, you seem ambivalent over that, regardless of what is going on with your DH.

The way I see it is that your DH suffers from some kind of depressive illness or is simply in the wrong job where he can't cope. The bottom line is that he si not taking his responsibility as a provider seriously. YOU are having to support him and your DC. If this had been decided as a lifestyle choice, fair enough, but it has happened by default.

Speaking very personally, I'd say that I could not continue in a marriage like yours; not because I'd resent being the main earner, but because I have a strong work ethic. To be blunt, your DH sounds like a shirker, and a man who won't face his own shortcomings. This is fine if he had only himself to support, but he hasn't.

I know a little bit about making change happen; you cannot expect or demand that the other person changes. YOU have to change. This might mean you become more demanding of him, give an ultimatum, or change your job so it is less demanding- all of which will impact on him and make HIM do something.

You can still say that you will stand by him, but maybe there have to be conditions- timescales and medical support if he needs counselling via his GP, or something.

You are giving him too many choices to be honest and he is taking advantage of your patience.

Whenwilli- are you a counsellor- you ask the questions in the way a counsellor would?

My ex was very similar to
your dh howdi. I had years of looking after him financially and emotionally while he was too " depressed" to work. Too sensitive to environments, too creative to be told what to do, too shy to cope with people. Initally I loved him, protected him, tried to fix him. But after five years I burnt out and took him to the doctors to ask for cognitive behavioural therapy. He refused to follow up the referral. After a few months I couldn't cope and asked him to leave. This made him do the course of therapy, and "win me back" a few months later, with proposals and promises of work and children. I did want to love him and believe in him, but it was broken from then in. I had my first affair the year after. And what I've not mentioned to you in our conversations is that I had a second affair 2 years after that. With my now dp. The whole thing nearly killed me, I should of left him years before I did, before the affairs. I'm just so glad I never married him and had children with him. It must be soo hard for you.

diggers you touch on a point that is relevant - to Howdi.

Anyone who knows anything about addiction, or people who have challenging behaviours, which affecta relationship will say that the outsider cannot change the other person. They have to want to change. You found that you burnt out after 5 years. You did give ultimatums and you did follow through.

No, I am not a counsellor PP.

It's very important that your don't censor what you say Howdi; privacy notwithstanding.

So what you are telling us is that you confused intellect and intelligence, with performance and work ethic? Easy to do, when you were both students and not yet in work.

But that as time went on and you both went to work, it became apparent that there was a huge chasm in your values and ethics. Pulling a sickie seemed deceitful to you too and you weren't prepared to collude in that, which caused flashpoints. You have therefore identified far more issues than just a clash of work ethic; it is more of a clash of core values.

You are describing entirely different approaches to responsibility. Your sense of responsibility and "doing the right thing" is huge and your husband's is small.

I think you are alluding to your incredulity that your H has genuine health issues. It seems you suspect that he went sick to avoid a performance management process, knowing full well that a period of long term sick can frustrate these processes, because weak managers will often lose the energy to complete them. Do you feel that he is "playing the system"?

Now all of this is anathema to you and is so far away from your own values and attitudes to responsibility. And yet, here's the rub....and clearly explains some of your distress.

You despise deceit and regard it as wrong. yet you have been engaged in a massive deceit with the OM, one which initially caused huge distress to his wife, which you took responsibility for rectifying. I wonder how much this has damaged your sense of self, as it is so far removed from everything you have believed about yourself up to now?

You've taken some responsibility for telling your H what happened, but haven't told him everything. That causes even more dissonance.

I wonder whether there are certain positive aspects of yourself that you are happy to have and acknowledge: your intelligence, your intellect, your work ethic, your sense of family loyalty, your achievements, your high professional reputation, your capability to juggle competing demands, your love for your DD, your ability to contribute equally to the finances and work involved in a marriage and family?

But deeply uncomfortable about some other aspects, or needs, that you have been "burying"? Things that you won't give yourself permission to feel or think, because they clash so horribly with what you want to believe about yourself?

When people's marriages break up (or are damaged) after infidelity, it is always better if they look at the series of choices they made along the way. There are always choices and sometimes there are surprises, in that the affair allows people to play a role they didn't realise they would enjoy; i.e. the needy, vulnerable woman who likes being protected.

What I'm also seeing is a clash of values that is a commentary on the times in which we live. You and your H are the embodiment of an emancipated society - you both had wonderful educational and work opportunities and there were no different expectations or opportunities based on your gender (apart from those of your Mum, perhaps.) You had a Dad who supported your achievements and took great pride in his bright female child. So far, so good.

And yet here you are, feeling as though everything is your responsibility and that as a working mother, you are miserable, angry and frustrated that life is not fair at all. And for all your beliefs about equality, you are telling your H that you don't feel "womanly" and he tells you that your earning power (and of course what he's hiding, the affair) makes him feel "less of a man".

Now back to those choices. I expect you have always believed that people having affairs should leave their marriages first before getting involved with someone else. That infidelity is wrong.

Now it is pretty evident from what you say that your marriage was deeply troubled before the affair. What I want you to examine is:

Why didn't you give yourself permission to end the marriage?
What would stop you giving yourself that permission now?
How much of this affair is punitive, in motive?
What aspects of your personality and character are you willing to own, that may have previously been buried?
Which of those can you live with and accept, and which do you want to change?

Or have to be able to change. I think now that my ex did want to "step up" , did want to be the man I needed him to be, but very very sadly he could not. He is who he is. It's one of my biggest regrets that through fear, indecision and misdirected loyality to the promises I made him, I stayed in a relationship that was breaking me and hurt him more by cheating on him. And denied him the chance to find another relationship with someone who wanted to look after him and call all the shots. I knew it wasn't right for me a few years in, but I continued trying to round a square. That was wrong and created the environment for infidelity and a great great deal of hurt for us both.

My post was in reference to pp, not wwifn.

( great post wwifn. If you're not a counsellor, you should think about being)

Thanks digggers

So what you are saying is that because you didn't exercise a choice to leave your partner, you ended up doing something you felt to be wrong, not once, but twice?

That's remarkable self-awareness - and I imagine you'd never be unfaithful again?

WWIFN- i think your commentary on Howdi has been pretty good so far, but now i think you have gone a bit too pseudo-psychobabble!

You assume - and that's the point- that she abhors deceit- where is the evidence for that? That her DH is pulling the proverbial wool over his employers' eyes re. sickies?

There is a huge jump between that statement- if it is true- and the deceit that Howdi carried out with seeing the OM.

I hate to say it, but i think you are over complicating the whole thing and making it more of a problem.

To my mind it is fairly simple:

Relationship has problems around work/life balance and balance of responsibility.
Howdi needs to think about how much of her respect for DH is tied up with the idea he is an equal provider.
If he needs "fixing" then she can't do that- only he can.
If he won't then she may decide enough is enough.

The affair was a symptom of a not-so-good marriage. I said this in another thread last week and was flamed for it. Many on MN believe that they had the perfect marriage and yet their Dhs still played away. I do believe that some men will have a quick fuck if they can, and it will be meaningless, but I also think that most people have affiars becasue something is missing from their marriages.

My final thought is that both Howdi and her DH need couple counselling so that they ca nboth say their bit to a 3rd party.

Wwifn, I can only say that with hindsight. At the time I thought I was horribly confused and in conflict about the whole thing and acted terribly at points.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not about my self awareness, perhaps because I don't think I am particularly self aware, and certainly wasn't through my last relationship. In answer to your question, after having experienced how devasting infidelity can be, I hope more than I hope anything to never ever do that to my dp and child. I hope that my past experience has taught me to end a relationship on honest terms if it isn't right for us both.

Just been thinking since my last post, and am feeling abit uncomfortable, that my last few posts could easily be construed as me urging howdi to leave her relationship. I guess I very much indentify with aspects of howdi's story and feel quite emotionally involved as i've followed her threads and offered her support from the start. But I do want to stress that all I've ever urged howdi to do is to break contact with her OM, get space from them both and get some counselling in order to figure out what she wants. Apologies if I have been a little too strident about my experience in the last couple of posts.

And also regarding my affairs, the first as I told howdi before was an emotional affair over a matter of months , predominately by phone and email ( met in person 3 times and just hugged) Completely out if the blue, completely fucked my head up, and ended by the OM, who managed to break contact when his wife fell pregnant. Was horrible. I never told anyone, kept it completely secret and was horrified by the experience. Threw myself into trying to fix the relationship I was in and felt guilty and broken.

Second one was a couple of months friendship that became more in the months leading up to my ending my relationship. I'd already tried to end it several times, but hadn't been able to for various reasons. when I realised that I and my friend had feelings for each other it was horrendous. Took me a month or two of indecision and fear, but then finally I told my partner
and ended relationship and broke contact with OM too. It took about six months for me and OM to get together properly after that.

And he is now my dp and father of my child. And wonderful!

Oh and I also read all the infidelity threads on here searching for answers as to why I behaved like I did. The first affair I think in part follows the script that I've read in many of the threads. The second didn't. In retrospect I will always blame myself for not ending my relationship sooner, but I also know how difficult I found it to do that. If I had been married and had a child, I don't know if I could of.

I think the whole thing is far more complicated than we can all understand. I don't think there's a set if circumstances that are always the case. But I don't think I totally understand. I'm always going to be wondering and trying to learn though. Which is why I guess I post in howdi's threads. Trying to figure it out more myself, so I never do it again.

Digggers. No I wasn't being sarcastic at all. I think it takes a huge amount of self-awareness to arrive at the conclusions you have - and is a mark of your character that you are still searching for answers and understanding.

PurplePeony I don't want this to become a thread where you and I lock horns yet again, about our very different views, or our ways of expressing them.

My position about why affairs happen has never changed. Sometimes they occur in unhappy marriages and sometimes they don't, either through lack of opportunity or the person's moral code and values.

Some people in happy marriages won't have an affair, but some will, often because of an opportunity presenting itself at a time of unhappiness or esteem issues, that are not connected to the marriage or their spouse. Those latter affairs are not always about a "quick fuck" either, they are far more complex.

You believe that most (sometimes on here, you say all) affairs are evidence of unhappiness in the marriage - I don't.

What I will also never do is to minimise the pain and hurt associated with infidelity, from all sides of the triangle. I think that unfaithful people often minimise the hurt and claim it is no big deal, or justifiable, because that way they can live with themselves more easily. Howdi is so far removed from that position, that I want to help her. I wouldn't want to help anyone who was still justifying infidelity.

I have made no assumptions. I have asked Howdi whether she is dubious about her H's sick leave as it seemed that this was what she was alluding to. Also given that Howdi has spoken throughout her threads and on here about her disgust at her actions, her guilt and her concerns that she is somehow "defective", it seems obvious to me that deceit is pretty abhorrent to her, in terms of behaviour.

There is nothing "simple" about this story at all.

WWIFN- you have a better memory than I have as i don't remember locking horns with you before!

I still believe that if a relationship is givng the people in it 100% what they need, they won't look elsewhere. I have known quite a few people in RL who have had affairs and they have said it was because their partner didn't provide all they needed.

I don't know what your own experience of this is, and I apologise if it's a sore point for you, but that's my opinion.

I'm a bit [shocked] that you take offence so easily with anyone criticisng your opinions on this, or the advice you gave to Howdi. it wasn't my intention to make this an issue with you because as I have said, i can't recall any previous run-un.

Ladies, please don't argue! You're both kind, caring, insightful women that I have much respect for, from reading your thoughts. It's an emotive area for sure, but neither of you have cone across badly to me, and where you differ in opinion I think tis because everyone does. but poor howdi's head must be wrecked after Reading everything that we've all said today, it's a he'll of an experience this degree of self analysis. And in public so anyone can have a go! You've both been amazing to her, don't fight, She doesn't need a ruck xxx

And thank you wwifn, that's very kind of you. Sorry for thinking you were being sarky, still haven't quite back to liking myself so don't quite expect others too either.

Blimey - don't know what to say now except I actually think that both WWIFN and PP have something important to add.

I asked WWIFN for her experience and advice because I felt that (having avoided facing up to what she had to say on other threads) that it was time to look this full in the face. I've found it more enlightening than I could possibly have imagined and actually think she's done an amazing job at getting to the heart of the issues.

I've actually been nodding to myself at the accuracy of some of the observations. I realise now I've been in denial and always trying to keep up appearances - defending my DH to the outside world and never admitting to the issues that were causing me concern.

And just as an aside - WWIFN - your whole post is astonishingly spot on and yes I feel very angry when I think about equality and those issues. I feel like I have been lied to all my life - the idea that women can do anything they put their minds to. It's not true - yes you can but at the cost of family life. Men need not make such stark choices. That is not equality.

But to the questions:

Why didn't you give yourself permission to end the marriage?

I want to bring up my little girl in a family unit. The expectations of our respective families (I had a deeply Catholic upbringing and despite a very large family there are NO divorces or marriage breakdowns among the family). Because I made a promise which I believed in at the time.

What would stop you giving yourself that permission now?

The idea that my little girl would hate me in the future for making that decision. Family will react very badly. Have no help to try and make things work practically.

How much of this affair is punitive, in motive?

I have asked myself that question and I honestly don't know. I have carried anger and I wonder if this is a deliberate attempt to hurt DH but I don't think it's the case. I think it was more of a case that I had reached a point of absolute numbness and sometimes misery. I dreaded going home, I found it difficult to get up and face the day and I pushed self destruct. I've been drinking too much for a long time. Making myself vomit - something I'd not done for years. Everything felt really bleak and OM felt like a lifeline.

What aspects of your personality and character are you willing to own, that may have previously been buried?

A theme comes out at me of this whole thing and that is allowing myself to feel vulnerable sometimes, allowing myself to be looked after. I have never done that and I pride myself on being able to look after myself. I don't know how I feel about that - it makes me recoil, feel pathetic and want to pull myself together.

Which of those can you live with and accept, and which do you want to change?

I don't know just yet - trying to get my head round that.

Thank you.

digggers - thank you as always. It can't have been easy to bare your past like that. I appreciate it and know that your main purpose in posting has been to try and avoid another woman treading the path you had gone before and all the pain that ensued. So thank you and sorry if it cost you to bring it up here.

Thanks Howdi and above all, I'm glad this thread is helping you.

What I have come to accept however is that no parent, male or female, "has it all" unless there are opportunities to work fewer hours for more money, i.e. freelancing or sole trading, where a better work-life balance can be achieved. Many men also bitterly resent that they can't spend enough time with their children .

So reflecting back, you are saying that the reason you didn't end the marriage before the affair, was because you wanted your daughter to be raised by her birth parents and because of religious and familial expectations. Also a strong desire not to renege on a promise you made a long time ago and which you believed in "at the time".

You feel you cannot end the marriage now because you project that your infant daughter will hate you later on, you fear the reactions of the family and your practical arrangements would need to be re-negotiated, as you have no help nearby.

What you are expressing here are expectations and projections. You expect massive disapproval from your family and project hate from your daughter and a collapse of the finely balanced regime. You have high expectations of yourself too; that your DD will be raised in the perfect nuclear family and that you will keep a promise that you meant at the time, but wouldn't make now.

There is nothing here about your love for your DH, or the loss of him as a partner, if you left your marriage. Have you lost the expectation that you will love him throughout, and cannot project feeling any loss if the marriage ends?

You have wondered whether your affair was punitive and although you acknowledge anger with your DH, you don't think this was a deliberate attempt to hurt him. The anger turned to numbness, misery, alcohol misuse and some self-harm, making yourself vomit.
In the midst of all this chaos and numbness, the OM seemed like a lifeline and an escape from what your life had become.

Affairs that are punitive in motive are rarely about causing deliberate hurt to the spouse. But often they start from a position of unresolved anger and blame towards the spouse. Sometimes people have tried and failed to get their partner to make changes (e.g. marry them, have more sex, pull their weight, take responsibility) and sometimes the anger/blame is not even acknowledged by the errant spouse and is therefore completely hidden from his/her partner.

I'm interested that you agree that you have been keeping up appearances somewhat about your DH's failings and it seems you have been at pains to support him during the times when things went wrong for him.

Perhaps you colluded in his outrage when he wasn't taken on after the FTC ended, made endless efforts to help him turn around the performance management process in the second job and maybe even allowed him the delusion that this was redundancy and not personal.

Perhaps at first, you were soothing about some of the anxiety he felt about facing yet another process in the current job.

If I had to spot when your "snap moment" came, it was when he went sick and delayed things reaching a conclusion. So you were in limbo as a family and had over 6 months of uncertainty about whether he would have retained his job.

Have you ever sat him down and explained where your differences lie, in terms of work ethic and core values? Perhaps you never acknowledged to yourself back then, that you were very angry and full of blame for the effect all of this was having on you - and what you perceived at the time to be the choices enforced on you?

But having acknowledged it now, do you think that this propelled you towards an affair, along with all the other enticements that affairs bring; the feelings of being alive and all senses being heightened, all of which have an especially potent effect on people who are feeling numb and depressed?

What did you allow your H to know about, in terms of how angry and blaming you were, how miserable you were, how you were drinking to excess and vomiting and crying your eyes out in the toilets at work?

You are realising that there is a side to you that is vulnerable and in need of protection, but you still have difficulty giving yourself permission to acknowledge those needs and there is a constant fight about this issue, with the woman who wants to be strong and capable all the time.

It is not a peculiarly female need to want to be looked after and protected, or to be allowed to feel vulnerable at times. It is often more permissible I think, in our culture, for females to admit to those needs. However, it is difficult for you as a person, because of your self-image and perhaps because of your assumed role of being the one with drive, ambition and capability in your marriage. It is one felt by many men too - the need to appear strong and capable; unflappable under pressure.

We all need to allow those bits of our personality some attention. Now you've recognised it in yourself, the permission process might follow.

You are still thinking about the things that were previously buried, but now owned by you, about your personality and character that you would like to change.

There are other things that might be buried, that are even more uncomfortable though. You never thought you could engage in a deceitful relationship, but you did. It's horribly hard to acknowledge that one is being deceitful, if that behaviour has in the past been abhorrent to you. You might resist from adding, to that long list of things you accept about yourself, the word "deceitful". You might say "I am behaving deceitfully and I am lying, but I am not a deceitful person and I am not a liar." If so, you are making a distinction between the person and the behaviour.

I am sure you aren't that person, but you might need to own those behaviours, uncomfortable though they are to believe yourself capable of. But you can change them, if you want to - and never behave like that again.

Push through some barriers for a moment and have a think about the barriers traversed on the run-up to the affair with the OM. Tell me about all the incremental steps and how you felt about each barrier broken, until it got to the point where you were expressing your love for one another and were meeting in secret. We've talked a lot about permission-giving processes so far. How did you give yourself permission to have this relationship?

Tell me what prevented you from sitting down with your H and telling him that you were concerned about the feelings you were having, before it got to crisis point.

Tell me also about what was happening to your feelings for your H as your feelings for the OM grew?

Then tell me about what you told your DH about the OM, the reasons you gave at the time for this happening, your feelings for your H and the OM.

Howdi, you say that you fear that you're daughter will hate you for breaking up the family unit. But if you could give your daughter a choice between that and being brought up in a marriage with tension, arguments, resentments and a lack of love, what would she chose? Being brought up by a mother who was so unhappy that she drank to excess, worked all hours, had affairs, made herself sick, denied herself what she truly needed to be happy? and being taught the message that it is more important to worry about what people think of you than to be honest and brave and strong and take chances and risks for the happiness of all involved? That fear of shame and upholding family values are more important than honesty and love? that you should sacrifice your own happiness in order to keep up appearances?

I'm being harsh, but I don't think that you are doing right by her if you think the former is her choice. Not all "family units" are good places to be brought up in. Unless yours changes dramatically, it certainly doesn't sound like it is

Howdi,
I hope you are ok and this thread is being useful for you. I think WWIFN is excellent in getting under the surface and all the motivations, and following them through. It is very obvious to me - and totally understandable BTW - that your OM was a real refuge for you from everything that had been going on. (As I have said before, I have been working through a paler version of your situation myself.)
I also hope the thread is enlightening to people who all too quickly condemn anyone who gets tempted/involved in an emotional affair.

Howdi I hope you find a way through this.

I don't know how much you know about my situation but thereason I can empathise is that I have this T shirt too. I don't say too uch about it on MN as many people have and would flame me.

I have had 2 emotional connections- long distance, so very few meetings- should we call them with 2 men in 26 years of marriage. Both were epeople I had known before- I didn't set ou t looking for a fling. In both cases they were at a very low point in their marriages and we offered mutual support which then spilled over into something else.

I could have left my marriage the first time- that man did go on to divorce- but he wouldn't ask me to leave as he didn't want to break up my family. I interpretted this as him not caring enough, when he back ed off. Since then we have had frank conversations and that's how I know. I didn't leave my DH because I didn't want to break up my family.

Now, I am living with the fall out of that. Living in a marriage which hasn't fulfilled me in many ways has caused a lot of arguments with my DH, including me being unhappy a lot of the time and being short tempered. My children have weathered this and last ight my son - now an adult- called me a first rate bitch and told me he hates me. That breaks my heart- I don't know how much is true or if it was simply temper.

What I got out of my talks and emails with the other men was communication- about anything and everything- as my Dh although one of the kindest and caring men there is, is not a communicator. He is almost slightly Aspergers and has become more withdrawn and a loner over our marriage.

The reason i am telling you this, is because I am living with the consequences of staying in a marriage which didn't tick all the boxes- ie my son despising me.

Whichever route you choose, there will be a price to pay, but I hope you find the answer for you.

That is so very sad PP. I hope you don't get flamed, like londonartemis said there are many reasons why people get into these situations.

I hope you can talk to your son about his anger last night, as those are very hurtful things he said to you. I'm sure it was anger though - anger and love co-exist in many relationships.

Thanks walking
yes it hurts and the point I was wanting to make is that children do see through things. I stayed with my family as I really thought it as best for us all. My marriage was never dreadful, I just often felt very lonely and as if my DH never "got me".
The frustration I have felt has manifested itself in my being bad tempered and tetchy, as well as critical of DH in front of my children- which I do now regret. I can't expect them to understand me, but I was trying to do the best for them at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!