After an affair

[Bigregrets]

Is it possible for you to stay with hubby and live happily ever after without him ever finding out about the affair?

I was having an affair which ended physically in Sept. We have had contact since of maybe once a week a text and thats it - and just a general how are you.

I was doing really well with the above and actually enjoying spending time with DH again, but for some reason this week i have missed OM a lot - not necessarily the physical side of it, just the not having him there to speak to and miss the fun times we had.
I don't know why i have started to miss him again - there is nothing I can pin point which will have set it off.

As for marriage - it was getting back on track, we were spending time together and enjoying it etc but since missing OM i've not been making so much effort with DH. I haven't contacted OM - i'm just thinking of him a lot more again, whereas he had gone out of my every second thoughts.

So i suppose the above translates into wondering why i'm thinking about OM again and also if it is possible to fall in love with DH again after an affair and make it work esp if he knows nothing about it??

Hi Bigregrets

I had an emotional affair - I last saw OM in March, last spoke on the phone July, when I effectively ended it and said I wouldn't be contacting him again. I'm finding it very difficult - still - despite a lot of love and support from a small group of friends, two of whom are regular MN posters.

Like you I've been trying to get things back on track with DH, but have found this hard as I still think a lot about OM. I was infatuated by him and still can't shake off rather obsessive thoughts about him. I miss the nice chats we had, how he made me laugh, and the kisses and cuddles.

I can only put this inability to completely let go and put the whole liaison behind me down to the fact that I invested vast amounts of thought and emotional energy into it over an almost two-year period.

Therefore I am working on the premise it is going to take me at least another two years to come out the other side, as it were.

I just can't say at this point if it is possible to fall back on love with my DH - it hasn't happened yet, although we are close enough and get on well day to day, we have 2 teenage DC. I like to think it will be possible to make things work in the longer term, as we have been married for 20+ years.

I did have a talk with my DH in the summer and told him I had been "fancying" someone else; that it was over and I wouldn't be seeing him again (OM was a contractor who had worked for us). DH was a bit angry with me but acknowledged our marriage needed reviving a bit and we both agreed to try harder.

As regards the OM, no contact for me is the key. I will not contact OM again and hope I don't bump into him - he lives less than 10 miles away. I do find myself looking out for his car, or his company vehicles. I make connections in my mind all the time - songs remind me of him; places we used to meet.

You just have to keep going, a day at a time.

The key to it is TIME. I say each day - this too shall pass - one of my gran's sayings!

Would counselling help? I go through phases of thinking - it's not normal to feel like this, so sad, so obsessed, so wishful of what might have been. I saw a counsellor when I was in the midst of the EA and have been thinking of going back.

It might just help you to straighten out your thinking to share your concerns and questions with an impartial third party? My friends have been wonderful but they are totally on my side and thus, biased. Not always a good thing.

I do empathise very strongly with you though. Keep posting because there are a few of us out here who know what you're going through. I will try to help and I'm sure others will chip in too.

Sending love, Izquierda

Keeping up contact with the OM won't help you move on. You need to make a choice and stick to it. I know it is hard.

For me the No Contact rule is absolutely crucial. I had gone 4 months without contact March to July, then broke that and had to go back to square one - like letting a wound scab over then picking it open again. Sorry for the unpleasant analogy but that's just how it it - and it hurts like hell. I've now done another 4 months and feel stronger so can't see myself giving in again. It also seems fairer to DH too - not that I have been fair to him given the whole sorry story, I admit.

bigregrets - I seriously advise you to be cruel to be kind to yourself in the long term and stop contact with OM.

You cannot invest in your marriage and keep the OM still in the picture, even if it is just by text. It is having an emotional effect on you and will make you wish to see the OM more and more; the temptation will increase.

As ItalianLady says, you need to make a decision and stick to it. If you seriously want to try to make a go of your marriage, you will need alot of will-power, self-control, and have no contact. Contact is just confusing matters for you. You could end up a mess, and make a huge mess for yourself in your life, if you carry on like this.

Once you make a decision to genuinely try with your DH, your DH deserves a DW who is fully committed. And for you not to inflict pain on him.

I know from bitter experience that you can't have it both ways, and the fall-out is horrendous.

Cutting contact, I think, is crucial. I have been there, years ago, and it just meant that by keeping both options open, I just put my life, and everyone else's into limbo. I also ended up getting quite ill from the stress of it all; it wasn't fun at all. I also inflicted alot of pain on my then H. But, I learnt a difficult lesson about myself and the effect of my behaviour on others - the hard way.

Please note - my THEN husband.

iifsn....Your then H, can I ask...did you have the EA because you were unhappy and then split up or did you find the EA made you realise how unhappy you were iyswim..

What is an EA? Alot of reasons and circumstances (in my case) led to me having the affair (no - I will never make excuses for my behaviour;my responsibility) eg sexless marriage for 3 years, many difficult pregnancies/miscarriages, pnd....... It was a long time ago now, but I learnt alot from it, and have never forgot the turmoil it all caused everyone.

Sadly, the OM was bad. Another long story.

I was very naive about life when I had the affair.

EA - emotional affair.

EA = Emotional affair. Sorry I just reread and realised it wasn't a EA, got a bit muddled up sorry. It sounds like you have taken responsibility and really learnt alot from your experience, that's a very brave process. I guess it's always very complex....Hope you are happy in your life now though iifsn x

Hi bigregrets

I had an affair in 2008 after 25 years with DH. I hadn't noticed I was in denial about the state of my marriage, had lost respect for DH, was treating him badly, mildly abusive and living separate lives while DC grew up (late teens).

The affair shocked me out of my sleepwalking state. I never thought I was "the sort" to cheat and lie and sneak around. I have since realised that is nonsense. Anyone is vulnerable.

Since it ended (MMs guilt and wish to repair his marriage) I have been in counselling. After a year, and telling DH all, and going to Relate together, I decided to move out.

This was my choice. DH would forgive me and start afresh if I agreed. But something inside is broken and I can't go back. I am now living apart from my family and rebuilding. I have had some fantastic advice on here and made some lovely friends in RL as well.

But overall the process has been painful and destructive and I wish I could have woken up and dealt with things without the affair. I will never feel quite the same about myself again.

Affairs generally wreck lives. Some couples do recover/forgive/move on with a different kind of relationship because no-one in a marriage is ever the same after one. Or, of course, if one partner never finds out, the partner who had the affair has to live with the guilt. I got found out because I am not a good liar/actor/couldn't cover my tracks etc... so I don't know how I would have handled the guilt - not very well, I don't think.

Sorry if I caused confusion mentioning EA - I would class mine was a emotional affair; I admit we kissed and had other physical contact but not "proper" sex.

waves to whenallelse yoo-hoo!!<

As iifsn mentions, I am moving forward with my DH in a different way. He knows I had a thing about someone else and that someone else fancied me.

I have to live with the guilt that DH doen't know the full story e.g. that I met OM in secret on a number of occasions and that we had physical contact.

That is the cross I have to bear and the knowledge I have to carry around with me now and I do see it as my punishment.

Going back to what Italianlady said earlier, she is right, you wil find it nigh-on impossible to move forwards while ever you are still in text contact with OM.

I can't write much - but I can only echo what all these wise ladies who have been there before you are telling you. Break contact with the OM. It will be one of the hardest things you've had to do - but it is the only way you are going to be able to eventually forget him. These texts you are exchanging are a continuation of the affair - you are still, in essence, having an emotional affair.

I say all this, bigregrets as someone who has so far tried, but failed, to break contact with her OM. I listened to advice of lovely MNetters and I managed for a while, but kept caving in eventually. It means I've so far found it impossible to move on - and this has also obviously been to the detriment of my relationship with my DP.

I hope you find the strength to stop contacting OM. Only that way will you have the emotional space you need to figure out if you and DH have a good, happy future together, or not.

Good luck!

Thanks ladies. I really do read your advice and take it all on board. I'm relatively young (28) so hoping hubby and I have many many HAPPY years together so i just want to put this down to a huge fuck up on my part and hope we can live through it without him finding out and being hurt.
( The OM wife is currently pregnant although was NOT when affair started and ended immediately when we found out - this may jog memories as I posted re this)
When you say cut ALL contact - i deleted him from my FB which felt unusually good but i can't change my number as it's used for so much and would be near on a nightmare to do so, so what do i do if he contacts me? Ignore? I no longer have his phone number stored in my phone.
Thanks so so so much for your replies - you really do help me.xxxxx

You can reject numbers either when they ring or as a permanent thing.

You're still having an affair, so no.

My answer to your OP is twofold.

You say you have been in contact weekly since the affair ended. If you are saying that he is the one who texts you, then you are just as responsible for responding. What you are both doing in actuality is keeping this affair on the backburner should things not work out with your spouses or rather more pertinently, should your resolve waver. As his wife gets more pregnant, this is just the sort of bloke who will reach out for attention from someone else and you are the easiest target.

If you are serious about ending this relationship, then do just that. It never works to remain in contact with an affair partner.

On your original thread, you said that you were considering counselling, because you are young and relatively newly married and yet you still had an affair, despite loving your H and there being no particular problems in your relationship. That suggests then that you have an individual predisposition to infidelity and it would be wise to get to the bottom of that, whatever happens to your marriage.

Lastly, in my view it is impossible to build a truly intimate happy marriage when there are such huge secrets. There is now a massive power imbalance. Your H is continuing in this marriage by having his choices denied. If you are going to go to counselling, talk to him/her about whether it is appropriate for you to confess all.

I suspect you will never fall back in love with your H while you have still got OM on the back-burner and while you are keeping this secret.

Hi all

I did reply to this yesterday but it doesn't seem to have been added.

WWIFN - you are always full of wise words and everything you say makes sense. I have been putting counselling off as i was feeling better and thought that i would just be able to go back to normal - obviously not. I am so confused as to why i am thinking about him so much - I haven't been contacting him, just keeping my thoughts inside but i was really doing well with H and enjoying time with him. Now i feel he is irritating me again. Maybe i do need that counseller - sounds silly but i always felt that counselling was for serious situations - i'm being blinkered i suppose.
I would have thought that as his wife gets more pregnant, he would want less contact as would be sharing all those magical moments and love her more.

Spidookily: Would this really be classed as still having an affair? I am genuinely confused as to that as i thought an affair consisted of physical contact but maybe this is not the case?

I suppose the way i've been looking at it is, i miss him and whilst we are not meeting up - and haven't for over 2 months now, we are still staying friends. Is this REALLY impossible to do? I ask as i know i would probably give advice saying that you shouldn't stay friends but i'm probably being naieve thinking we can do??

This is a serious situation. You had an affair, despite being in a happy marriage. It doesn't get much more serious than that, does it?

And of course it is an ongoing affair. You have been intimate with this man. You were never "just friends" and you can't be again if you both want to make a go of your marriages. Neither of you are friends of eachother's marriages, are you? This can never be an openly conducted friendship, like it might be with an ex, or a platonic male friend.

Yes, it is to be hoped that the growing life he and his wife created will bring them closer together, but you might be under-estimating her hormonal changes during pregnancy, when relationships and sex-lives can become fraught. Weak men will often reach out for the empty calories of an OW when this happens.

No contact is the only way.

No, I have never met his wife and vice versa.

We are also unlikely to bump into each other, despite only living 30mins drive away.

I won't allow myself to be reached out to and used for when things may not be great with wife during pregnancy or afterwards when she doesn't have as much time for him as she is so exhausted from looking after a newborn.

Been giving these issues a lot of thought as I've been in a similar position.

I deleted all OM's numbers off my phone, off my PC, even cut pages out of my diaries.

Now I can't remember the number - I used to be able to, so that's bit of progress.

I tell myself if he calls - I probably would recognise the number if I saw it on my display - I will not answer, then delete the record. I like to think I can be that strong.

I sense I may possibly be put to the test at Christmas or on New Year's Eve but I hope not.

I agree with WWIFN in that I don't think it is possible to remain friends in these circumstances as per her 2nd para. in the 11.17 message.

I don't have any other option but to keep on, waiting for the pain and longing to fade away and I see that as the price I have to pay for making some poor judgement calls.

Bigregrets - I am happily married to my DH, had a physical affair and an EA, and my husband does not know about either of them.

I think it is possible to fall back in love with your DH after an affair, even if he does not know about it; but in order to do that you have to 'fall back in love' with yourself. Which means that you have to do some work on working out why, if you were/are happily married, you chose to have an affair. I was in the same situation as you, nothing wrong with my marriage, but I chose to have an affair with another woman's husband because I was thrilled by the chase and flattered by the attention. Why my affair ended I went through the pain of the break-up, spent time trying to work our what was wrong with my marriage and, after the second EA, realised that it was me that needed sorting out.

I went for counselling which I highly recommend, as you may not think this is a serious problem, but it is if it affects your marriage and physical and emotional well-being.

I suspect the reason you are thinking about OM is that you haven't addressed the issue of why you had an affair. And, of course, you need to cut all contact with OM - you can block his phone number so if he tries to call you won't know.

And far be it for me to be critical of you, but his wife is pregnant ffs. At the risk of sounding like a harpy why would you want to have anything to do with a man who's wife is pregnant, and who is texting a woman who he has had an affair with. Please do not contact him, and do not respond to any attempts to contact you.

ILMT: I think the reason my affair started was because of a few things, being the extreme lack of sex life between me and H ( no excuse whatsoever but a possible reason) the attention from OM, the attraction to him was intense, the situation we were in when we met - girly weekend abroad, so very glazed over with a holiday romance type of thing although physically, things only started once we got home - we live 30mins drive away, the excitement, the fact H and I were going through a shitty stage - just all of the above pathetic reasons is why i can see it started.
And yes i do have moments of "what a wanker, his wife is pregnant with his child and he is texting me" But not him being soley responsible, i do accept that i am now fully aware of the fact his wife is pregnant and therefore shouldn't be in contact.

Big regrets...
I think your OM is a symptom of a Big Time problem with your H. Unless you address the 'gap' in your marriage which the OM filled, you will pine after him and the feelings he provoked forever. Even if you eventually let him go - because you recognise that is the right thing in his situation, you will fall for someone else who makes themselves available to you.

Been there too!