I lost a different long post today Howdi so I sympathise!
Howdi, you say that you were once very happy with your H, but that things deteriorated over the past year or so. Can you timeline this for us i.e. were things really bad within the first year of giving birth, did they deteriorate markedly after going back to work (how old was DD then?). How long ago was that first meeting with the OM?
When projecting the loss of your H, you say that you would miss him and recall your shared history. You also say that you don't seem to be able to understand eachother, but are you thinking of how you are with eachother right now, when he is hurting so badly? Presumably it wasn't this bad, before your affair?
You say you didn't hide your anger and drinking from your H, but you did hide two enormous issues from him; your bulimia and your emotional affair. One of these is still hidden, in fact. Why do you think you didn't want to show your H this side of yourself?
Overall, there is still no sense of your H having been entirely in the picture of how perilous things were.
Tell me, before you met the OM, did you ever tell your H that unless certain things changed in your marriage, you would be looking to end it? If not, why?
The story you tell about your burgeoning relationship with the OM is a familiar one, in affairs of this type. They usually start with delusions that "this is just a friendship that means no harm" but emotional affairs are characterised by three things:
- Secrecy (about the existence of and/or the nature of contact/conversations with the OW/OM)
- Sexual chemistry
- When the OW/OM knows more about the relationship with your spouse, than your spouse knows about the extra-marital relationship.
The moment you confided that there were problems in your respective primary relationships, a huge barrier was traversed. What this signifies to the other is: "I am unhappy at home. I am open to an affair. There is a gap available, for you to fill."
Most people delude themselves that no harm can arise, but as you say, at some level you knew this was a threat, mainly because you were conducting the relationship secretly. A good rule of thumb is "would I be happy for my partner to see/hear every interaction with my friend?" and if the answer is "no", then the risk is there.
From your latest post, it sounds as though OM's very existence was hidden from your H, until your confession. Was that so?
You may have read that in affairs, people are compartmentalisers or not. The compartmentalisers can keep both relationships in separate boxes or "bubbles" and one doesn't intrude on the other. Many people start as compartmentalisers, but then they lose that ability, either because of guilt, stress or deepening feelings for the affair partner. It is pretty evident to me that you are not a compartmentaliser, so what follows next is what tends to happen at home, with the "non-compartmentaliser".
Your H hasn't told you what he was feeling while the affair was ongoing. His story is still hidden. I wonder what his testimony story would be, from the point when you met the OM? Perhaps he noticed your faraway look, your lack of joy in being at home, or even with your DD? He might have been exasperated at your attachment to your phone, especially on that holiday when it was meant to be a time without intrusions.
He might have seen the critical look on your face when you appraised him, perhaps you were finding fault with more things about him? He might have noticed that your sex life had deteriorated even more and that you were "avoiding" opportunities all the time.
When people are in the midst of an exciting affair, especially one that they are deluding themselves about in terms of the risk, they also believe that it will be indetectable at home. Because of the trust default in healthy relationships, a spouse might never suspect an affair, but they almost always start to feel unsettled and unhappy.
At first they might not know why, but then as time goes on, they attribute their unhappiness to their partner's behaviour, which is getting markedly worse; more critical, more blaming and destructive. Very often, the spouse's self-esteem is low and in some cases, they feel as if they are going mad.
From his perspective you see, he might tell a friend that he was feeling crushed by 3 terrible work disappointments; the unscrupulous employers who used FTCs instead of giving full employment protection to their staff, the bad luck of redundancy in a credit-blighted firm, the lack of confidence all this engendered and the anxiety that was taken into the next job, where it became a self-fulfilling prophesy to under-perform.
And then, when he was at rock bottom, his wife had an affair.
It sounds awful when you put it like that, doesn't it? I'm not writing it to guilt-trip you either - but at the moment, you know he is angry and lashing out, as a wounded animal does when it is in pain. The perspective I have offered demonstrates that there is a different story of the affair, from all sides of the triangle.
You and I might agree that the perspective I have outlined would be delusional, because it seems that your H contributed to his work failures, but he might be clinging on to an injustice story, like a life-raft at the moment.
Many unfaithful partners look on in astonishment when the true horror of the effects of their behaviour is told by the betrayed spouse. While in the "bubble" of the affair, they were oblivious to their partner's pain and bewilderment, mainly because affairs cause people to lose empathy for their spouse - their pain/upset doesn't move them as once it did.
After discovery or confession too, the effects are enormous, because a betrayed partner must contend with a period in their life when all was not as it seemed. Some unfaithful partners cannot cope with the guilt or hurt, so they re-write history and claim dissatisfaction in the marriage where none existed, or exaggerate minor grievances.
Some partners lie about the affair details - directly or by omission and omit disclosing continud contact with the affair partner. You perhaps said that you hadn't slept with the OM, but neglected to say that this was because the OM put the brakes on, not you. You didn't convey the depth of your feelings for the OM, either.
What every betrayed partner will tell you too is that however understandable infidelity might be, however true the justifications about unhappiness were, the deceit and lies are the hardest thing to cope with - far worse than the infidelity itself.
When someone is forced to confront that for a time, their partner was lying and deceiving, it messes with their mind in varying degrees. How could I have not have noticed? When I thought my partner was stressed with work and was sympathetic, in reality she was feeling happy because of her affair! When I was left looking after DD because Howdi was working late, she was meeting him....and so it goes on. Gradually, the betrayed partner (if they have the energy) must reconstruct the preceding months, based on this new information.
It can cause people to doubt their grip on reality in every other area too. "If I didn't know about her affair, was that why I didn't recognise the signs that they were going to make me redundant at work? Am I someone who is oblivious to other things in life? How did I not know?"
Now no decent person in their right mind would want to inflict all this on another human being, least of all someone they are meant to love, but this is the stark truth about infidelity. Yet it is often minimised and bargained away as "not being a crime", or "it happens, we are all fallible."
Until someone has faced up to the story of the betrayed partner and seen their pain, this minimising often continues, especially by those who've kept their infidelity hidden from their spouse, on the basis that what isn't known, cannot hurt. In such situations though, only the unfaithful partner made any active choices and denied those of their spouse.
Your H's reaction to your confession must be confusing and terrifying. He is not telling you how he feels, but he is demonstrating huge anger. He has asked you no questions and strangely, it seems as though you aren't trying to persuade him to talk about this. Maybe that's because you fear more anger, but are there any other reasons for this?
As yet, because of your H's reluctance to discuss this, which is perversely a form of control, you haven't yet heard his story. The hurt isn't as real when you haven't seen your spouse cry.
I don't under-estimate how you will recoil at these words Howdi and I imagine that this is precisely why you have avoided my earlier threads in the past, but part of getting through this and becoming the sort of person who would never be unfaithful again, is to acknowledge the story of the betrayed partner and facing up to the horror and destruction infidelity causes.
Have a think about some of the questions I've posed tonight and get back when you are able. I think next, it would be helpful to consider the perspective of the OM and his role in events. For a long time, he has been a shadow in your marriage and you have been grieving his loss.
I admire your bravery and your willingness to face some deeply uncomfortable realisations Howdi. It goes back to where we came in - an affair doesn't make someone a bad person, as long as the person learns from the experience and doesn't minimise the ripple effect of infidelity.