is there any bugger who will just tell me i will be ok, without judging me too harshly.

[PirateScaredyCat]

I stopped an affair starting a few months ago.
I am single, he is married.

I have been a lonely person, yes. Have gone thru the mill with my ex dh and then dd's illness.

I enjoyed him caring about how i was doing.

I knew i shouldn't. I carried on responding to his texts, long after i should have. Everytime i tried to stop the contact, it just started up again. He kept saying he was confused and had fallen for me. Who the fuck doesn't want someone to fall for them, love them and care. Not me, yet I called time on the whole thing, after telling him it wasn't right in so many ways.

He loves his wife, he loves me. He loves his kids, he wants to keep his family together. I don't want him to break up his family. Something that started freindly, went somewhere that neither of us knew it would. I didn't plan it, it didn't even feel like a type of relationship as we really and honestly just mates to start with. Both having something missing in our lives.

Anyway, i am hurting, and i know it will get better but right now i feel like it will never stop. I have been thru worse, but nothing like this, so in it's own way it feels like rockbottom.

I felt almost suicidal the other day when i did this, something i had to be really brave to do, cos i knew it would hurt me. But also i knew i would have to trust it would be ok for everyone allround. He could never stop the contact with me and i kept getting dragged in.

Anyway, this 'thing' we had is over, but it's like some sort of come down for me and it hurts. Just want some support that i will ne ok. And maybe some tips as to how to take each day, i gues i am just reaching out.

Hey hey hey, of course you will be OK, and stop beating yourself up about this. he was the one betraying his wife, yet you were the one with the balls and dignity to end it. I don't think anyone should judge you negatively for that, to me it shows that you are an incredibly caring and decent person, who will put others before yourself.

:) :) :)

Aww love :(

Sounds like you've been through an awful time recently and needed this at the time. Well done for ending it when you did, bet that was one of the hardest things you've ever had to do. :(

Definitely the right decision, but that doesn't make things any easier, does it?

I don't have any tips I'm afraid, other than making sure you do lots of lovely things for yourself, look after yourself, be as selfish as you can be for a little while.

I remember the feeling well (not been in the same situation myself, but similar in a weird way) and the come down is truly awful. Give yourself time, and don't beat yourself up too much xx

Good on you for ending it. It will be much better for everyone in the long run

it never got physical, but it wasn't ending or going anywhere iyswim.

i guess it was emotional. he has chosen his wife. i made him make a choice. knowing he would choose her. yet i am also gonna miss that attatchment. i just feel really lonely now.

It will be okay but it takes time and you have to stop all contact completely. Take control of your life.

I spent ten years getting over someone once. It was so bad, the pain was like a knife, in deep, again and again. I couldn't imagine it ever easing. In the end I told myself that I should just accept that I wasn't going to get over him, that by accepting that, it was in some small way freeing me from trying and failing. Do you know what I mean?

As it happens, I did get over it. It was the right thing to do, because what's for you won't go by you.

All the old cliches are true. Time heals. And don't forget, there is more than one soul mate for each of us. Face it, what are the chances of meeting our one and only on our own doorstep and not thousands of miles away? There are many potential partners out there. The ones that start so messily, with affairs, are usually doomed from the start.

You will get over this. Give it time.

Good job...you did the right thing. I know it hurts like hell. You were, even over time, seduced, but by someone who wasn't available...again-you did the right thing.

Try projecting that hurt a little farther into the future if things has progressed and so many people were hurt forever over it...congratulate yourself on avoiding all of that on behalf of the others as well as yourself.

However, I do believe it is good to fully grieve for your present pain and that will eventually ease into peace and contentment with no regrets, and no renewed temptations.

I hope you feel better soon.

You have done the right thing, so of course you will be more than OK, for first you should be all proud of yourself for being so strong and decent. And for the heartache, spoil yourself, and spoil yourself as much as necessary. Lots of hugs from here to the brave woman you are, lots of love darling

Good on you for ending it.

And lucky for you not to have been landed with a slime bag who texts someone else behind his wife's back.

Don't waste your energy feeling bad about it.

Get out there and find the missing something in your life and who knows maybe you will meet someone really special along the way.

Hopeless romantic despite all evidence to the contrary!

perfumedlife - I also had to accept I wouldn't get over someone and after spending years trying too it has been weight lifting.

was just settling dd, thanks all.

i walked right into it all, albeit very very slowly, couldn't walk away. But i have now. I just feel weird feeling all these conflicting emotions, but at least i am in charge of this now.

utterly surreal in so many ways, you just can never tell whats round the corner and i do want a better life with someone who can be mine. i have been signle yrs now and it did feel thrilling to be adored. yet as you say, tho i couldn't see it at the time as well, he has been very wrong in texting me. I won't make excuses, i do beleive it could have gone the other way. a break up, but he has made the right choice and has to focus on his marriage. I guess i hung in there while to see thru how it was panning out. it wasn't going anywhere.

i hope i wiil feel better day by day.

Pirate you brave lady - you did a brave thing and should be proud of yourself for being the bigger person.

It is going to hurt and as Toomany said allow yourself to grieve but spoil yourself as well.

Could you and your DD get away for a few days to friends or family - a change of scenery can sometimes help.

Take care.

yes it would be good to get away. i can't at the moment tho, there are plans for half term but i have friends coming here.

my mum lives overseas so can't go there till next yr.

I really have been in another world it feels. I think i feel scared of bieng truly alone again, but i was ok before he popped into my life, and my god how he persued me. I am prob far to nice and forgiving. Yet i will stand up and say i was weak too. it felt good.

You say about stopping trying to getover something and it working. does this mean you just ride it thru??

Hmmm..I don't want to give you platitudes, because I think there are a few contradictions in your posts. You say you didn't want to break up a family, yet you forced a choice on him. What would you have done then, if he had chosen you?

I admire you for belatedly doing the right thing and I hope you stick to your guns, because for the man's wife, this emotional affair will have had some devastating effects on her, even if she doesn't know what her H has been doing.

In my view, both you and he are to blame for this, but I hope after all this heartache, you'll resolve never to get involved with someone who is attached, again.

It will take a lot of willpower and determination, but you will get through this.

Aww. Everyone will say you did the right thing. But actually not just for moral reasons, but for YOU too. He wasn't free, and it would have hurt you more in the long run, even though it hurts so much now. He was using you, actually, however much you loved him and he you - that he wouldn't stop the contact is an indication that he was the one who was fucked up, confused and wanting everything he couldn't have. It was hurtful of him to use you like this to deal with problems in his marriage.

You deserve a proper relationship with someone who can give you what you need, not play you when they feel like it. So you have done the right thing but for now you just have to treat it like the loss that it is: tend the hurt and don't expect too much of yourself. Later, much later, you can put yourself out there and someone will come. Now you need to take long baths, light candles, make small gifts to yourself, bring good friends around you. It WILL get better - it always does.

wwifn, i knew when i posted that everyone would see and read my situation. I have been in your situation myself, I have followed some of your posts, so thanks for your post.

You are right, what would i have done or felt if he has chosen me. you know what that has really really made me think.

I feel like a bit of a dickhead too, for being weak, when i have been so strong with what my ex dh has put me and dd thru. Yet i guess now, i can do the best for us again.

you have been very strong .. and it hurts like hell
you have shown great self respect when he wasnt
you will get over this, you deserve better from a relationship

Er...there might not have been any "problems in the marriage" Wilf - and if the man in this case was alleging there were, that might be news to his wife! Very often, the married people in this situation just get addicted to the buzz of a new relationship and sometimes confuse this - and lust - with love.

Wrong to assume that these things happen because of "problems in the marriage". Problem with the errant spouse yes, absolutely.

Pirate...I fell in love with someone once, a long time ago. He was in love with me too, but he had a wife. In the end I knew he would never choose me and I told him to go and do what he had to do to be a good husband and father.

I knew that if I didn't make the decision for him, he never would. It was really a no-brainer - I didn't want to be 'second' best..and I knew I always would be. Plus if he had broken up his family to be with me, the guilt, pain and distress caused to everyone would be too much for our relationship.

I'm not proud of myself for having an affair with him, but I cannot deny that I loved him. It took me years to get over it (I was quite young at the time) and I often ended up with other 'unsuitable' (aka unavailable) men. It was destructive and demeaning.

I look back on my young self now and wish I could shake her and hug her and tell her that she deserved to be with someone who was committed only to ME.

Thankfully, I found someone who loves me and we have a lovely family together.

If truth be told, I will also love my 'other man'...it was a beautiful relationship..but it wasn't a relationship that was ever going to last.

You need to allow yourself to grieve for what you had, and what you could never have together. It's normal. You're human.

WWIFN, sorry but I believe there are always problems in a marriage if one person chooses to stray. I know it isn't always palatable and of course the other party might not 'know' much about what those problems are, but both sets of needs aren't being met.

thanks, it's comforting to not be the only one. it's a dodgy area and of course it should be but it's about human emotion and falings and mistakes and trying to do the best.

he never would have stopped. i knew deep down there was no future, yet he seemed to want something. i know he is very depressed, but i said you have to get back to your life, and sort out why you came after me in the first place.

I had started to get very angry with him for being so selfish tbh. Selfish to everyone in the situation.

i don't know if there were problems. i think he had problems with his life in general. i guess if there is an opportunity in a man or a womans life to start having a flirt or chats with someone then that's how it starts. Not all men or women will do this tho, everyone is different.
He is 42, married 20 yrs. I hear of things going wrong in relationships of this duration very frequently. It happened to my parents.

I was probably the catalyst, an escape too. He fancied me. I said, before many time i think you ar haivng a mid life crisis, you are wanting an ego boost.

Pirate..I think you need to stop trying to justify WHY he had an affair with you. You will drive yourself mad and also, doing that will make you feel worse than you already are feeling.

Why not accept that you two had something but it wasn't the right time or place. It just wasn't 'right'.

I spent so long trying to justify why...it only made me feel used, when in reality, I know he loved me.

It sorts of does work phipps, doesn't it? Gives you a break from trying.

Pirate, what you need to think about is, there would never be any trust, not really. Even if he left, he would still be the man capable of telling blatant lies to someone who trusted him. Then you would start to wonder, if he can do that to his wife, his family, could he do that to me?

And the answer is usually yes.

Try to view this as a really valuable life lesson. Painful, but it enriches you and equipps you better for the real love to come.

Wilf it's not that it's unpalatable, it simply isn't true, unless you think that the many people who have affairs and are honest enough to admit that it was nothing to do with their marriage, are lying?

Pirate I'm sure you're right - and you know what he was telling you after all - that he had problems with "life" and that perhaps this started as an ego boost, but that's not to say that he didn't go on to develop genuine feelings for you, so I would never take that away from you and neither should you.

But I think you can take enormous self-respect away from doing the right thing at last - you are stronger than him. I'm glad my earlier question caused you to think, because I think the trouble with this is that often, people kid themselves that they made a huge sacrifice, either for their DCs or someone else's, when the truth might be that they were never really tested in this, because the affair partner didn't force the issue.

I think what might help you to reframe this moving forward is to view it as a lucky escape that he didn't force you to confront whether when push came to shove, you would have colluded with him in breaking up a family, because I sense that you wouldn't want the guilt of that, or the hurt and recriminations that would reverberate for years afterwards. I don't think you would have wanted that on your conscience, tbh.

Whereas now, especially if you spend a bit of time being really honest with yourself, your barriers will be firmly in place the next time someone is a bit down and in need of an ego boost. It's a horribly painful lesson, but one that you could turn into a positive in terms of the boundaries you create in the future.