Help me please - have really cocked up and don't know what to do

[havecockedup]

Please, I am already beating myself up about this, so please I don't need anyone else doing it more, but I really need help as to what the hell to do now.

I'm married. I love my husband. I'm also bored. I fell in love with another man. Tonight I kissed him.

That's it. I don't know what to do. I'm torn apart by this - not as much as I know my husband would be if he found out, I know - but I am fucking in love with two people, and it's been eating me up for weeks now. And now I've been fucking stupid. And I don't know what the hell to do.

I need some sleep now, have, hope you clear your head and work out what's right for you..

But TeaBaggy is right, the grass isn't always greener....

good luck.x

If you let this continue you will get caught.

I doubt that it was a 'total chance' that he just happened to walk you back to your car after the others had gone

he shouldn't have kissed me, but he doesn't make a habit of it, I know
Unless you take drastic action to stop it, you know damn well that it will become a habit. There'll be another kiss, and another, and a quick fumble, and a longer fumble, and the inevitable will happen - and all because you're 'bored'.

You know him so well from your once weekly meetings, do you? Do you know him well enough to know that if you leave your dh to shack up with him, you'll soon be bored again?

DH and I make a big effort, but can't ever seem to make it as exciting as falling in love again

You've already fallen in love with your dh, you've done the butterfiles in the stomach, the will he/won't he phone, the wonderment that this paragon has chosen li'l ol' you; now start falling in love with him all over again in the knowledge that he's proved his love for you, that he's (maybe) the father of your dc. that he's your solid, reliable, rock of ages - and wonder at the fact that he chose li'l ol' you to be those things to him.

Like lots of things in life, a good marriage is only as exciting as you make it. Next time you're feeling bored take up knitting, or take your dh to bed and blow his socks off.

And can the once weeklies unless you can trust yourself to make your own way back to your car without an escort.

Life with your DH will never be as exciting as the time you were falling in love - constantly on a high, wondering if he felt the same and giddy with the thought of seeing him again. You might be feeling similar now about OM but if he became your partner it would settle down to the kind of feelings you have now for your DH. The early excitement is transient and you see only the best in the other person. Real life it ain't.

It sounds like you want to be with DH and also keep your friendship with OM. You can't have your cake and eat it. And would you be strongwilled enough to keep OM only as a friend?

OP which is more important - the life you have with your dh, your marriage, your immediate and extended family OR the interest / hobby / work / commitment that causes you to see the other man every week and to put yourself in the way of temptation and misery? Whatever it is that you do that means you see him every week, it can't be as important as sorting out the relationship between you and dh. Even if you're the key member of a world-class olympic team, or he's the vicar of your church. Think what you'd do if you dh were seriously ill or your dc were sick: you'd give up on that once-a-week activity wouldn't you? At least until the problem was resolved. Or you'd take compassionate leave from work, or change your working hours.

Well your relationship is sick at the moment. It needs you to look after it and care for it, to make it the only priority in your life for a while.

If you really want to sort out what is going on and for you and dh to re-engage in deep love, then you have to make a commitment to it. Explore your feelings, communicate with him, build a new phase in your relationship. It may not work, you may never feel in love with dh again, but at least you'll know that you really tried 100% to communicate and to sort it out.

I'm afraid that if you can't do that for your relationship then there is a little bit of you that is deluding yourself. A bit of you that will always be comparing your dh with the other man (and because it's an unfair comparison your dh will always come off worse), a bit of you that will excuse yourself for your 'infidelity' because you are suffering for your love. You run the risk of heightening the emotional tension between you and the other man. I can understand that you want to continue with whatever activity, and that you want to still see this friend, but this is an act of selfishness which continues to put your marriage at risk.

Sorry if that all sounds a bit harsh, but you've got a chance to get your heart and your head straight before things go any further. Think about it.

I predict flames

Just because your married doesn't stop you falling in love with other people but it is what you do with it that counts. This is going to sound very cold but make a list how would your life be with each man, will it be more exciting with new man but financially unstable?Do you and new man have similar ideas about how to bring up dc? will he want to bring up your dc? look at it realistically will it fizzle out and if so what will you be left with. Can you hurt your dh like that? Do you still fancy DH?

I would cut all contact with new man if i were you it will get easier and there is no can't about it, you will get over him. Sometimes staying married is just about good willpower IYSWIM and you will come back to happier place with DH if there are no problems apart from this crush. Chemical attraction is a fucker but not worth throwing your life away for as it rarely lasts.

If you don't know what to do, best to do nothing till you do. Maybe read a lot of infidelity threads to get the real impact of what you are considering. Who can you imagine growing old with, depending on when life gets hard for some reason? Love is much more than lust. When lust dies down, can you imagine living with the knowledge of how you destroyed the world of your husband who you claim to love? That guilt is something that might be harder for you to get over than backing away from the attraction you feel for the other man. That guilt would be far worse than the guilt you are currently feeling ( imagine that ).

I'm writing as the wife left - 13 months on. I know the ongoing impact of my husbands rash decision. Things are currently still getting worse in every way, unimaginable but true. No one is happy and looking at a bright future anytime soon. My situation is maybe more complicated but maybe not? Only you know how you would survive the impact.

If you are unhappy in your marriage you need to end it because you are unhappy. That doesn't actually sound like the case. Then you are free to start another relationship. If you leave a man (DH) you love for another man (OM) you think you love, your new relationship is starting off as tainted in my opinion. Definitely not the best beginnings!

Being bored is not a good enough reason to cheat on your husband. Is this other guy married ? Are there any children involved? Because if you end up with the other man, what happens in 5 years time when you are bored with him ?
The very least that you need to do is look at getting some help with understanding why you feel as you do. Counselling, either alone or with your husband ?
The devastation that you may be about to drop on your family is not worth a quick snog and a few butterflies.

Firstly poor you you sound in a right tizz.

You had a snog, its not a huge deal (its not ideal) but you have not slept with him, i personally don't consider it cheating.

You are playing with fire however. It is very very easy to get a bit bored with your DH, meet someone and have a crush, have had the same recently.
Are you feeling a bit vulnerable about anything? I know that my sudden crush developed at a time when other stuff was going wrong and I felt fragile.

Having said all that, I really don't think you should tell your DH, things will never be the same again with him. You need to be strong and deal with this yourself and you really need to stop seeing this guy

izzy I think I love you

You sound as if you want to confess because YOU cant deal with the guilt, and it would make you feel better. You admit that your DH would be devastated and he would find it difficult to trust you when you saw the OM weekly - too right he would, and the first move to make if you are the adulterer is to cut all contact with the other person HOWEVER difficult that might be.
You need to take responsibility for your actions, so far we have heard 'Im bored' 'It just happened''Its not as exciting as falling in love' sorry thats all BS, you have allowed yourself permission to go along a road and tried to make excuses to justify your actions.
A long term relationship is NEVER going to be as exciting as the euphoria of falling in love. If that is what you are hoping to sustain in a marriage you are going to keep getting disappointed and 'bored' and never going to be able to have a fullfilling deep commitment to someone else. If you are constantly wanting the heady thrills, then maybe you are not cut out for monogamy and marriage, or maybe you havent found someone who you REALLY want to be involved with long term, and you have jumped into marriage during the honeymoon period - how long have you and DH been together - how soon were you married?
I think that the latest development in your relationship with OM has given you a big shock and made you realise how far down the line you have permitted yourself to travel, because I assume the kiss hasnt come from nowhere - you have built up emotional intimacy over the weeks with the talks you enjoy so much. The situation will not go away, and you are now in a place where it is too late to consider that no one is going to get hurt, but you can certainly do things which will reduce the impact. you need to realise that if you decide to go with the new relationship that the fizz of excitement (much of which may be based on the forbidden nature of it) will wear off and it will become as 'boring' as your marriage without work and commitment to maintain the relationship.
If the shock has made you realise that you want to stay with you DH then you need to invest in that, and this means that you cannot continue to see OM in any way, even if that is difficult. If it is a social thing, then I am afraid you are going to have to sacrifice it for the sake of your marriage. If it is work related then you owe it to your husband to look for new work, or confide in your boss what the situation is, so that the after work pattern can be altered. This might be embarrasing, but you will not be able to go back to just being collegues/friends, it has moved too far.
Perhaps some councilling might help, individual or joint.

I agree with others that a long-established marriage is obviously not going to feel the same as an exciting new relationship, that's just the nature of things. And that surely if you do start a relationship with this new man, exactly the same thing will happen. And what then?

I mean, if you actually want your life to be a succession of short-term flings, then that's fine, but in that case I think you need to be honest with any partner and not lead them on to think that you're interested in a long-term relationship or marriage if you know that's not a situation you'll ever be happy in.

Or maybe an 'open marriage' would work for you, though not many husbands/partners would be comfortable with that arrangement.

For now I don't think you need to tell your DH what happened, especially if it was just a kiss. I do think you should stop seeing this other man and have a good long think about what you want from life and relationships.

OP - I agree with many of the posters here and particularly with Nettle above. I would treat this as a huge wake up call for yourself, and if you can live without confessing all to your DH, I wouldn't tell him. I think let sleeping dogs lie - and make damn sure those dogs stay sleeping, forever, by never putting yourself in this position again with this guy or anyone else and being vigilant to the signs within yourself if you ever get into dangerous waters again.

I recognise a lot of my younger self in your situation - and sometimes it was an act of consciously choosing my partner over another guy. It is sometimes gutting that I have to think rationally about situations, I wish I was the kind of person who could say I only ever had eyes for my partner without even thinking about it, but I'm not. I love the attention and I love the frisson of danger, and it was only when I met and married my DH, by thinking very very hard about what I stood to lose and rationally examining how I felt about my DH that I got my head sorted out. (Now my inclinations manifest only in dreams occasionally but those don't count, and I'm usually floating or my teeth are falling out at the same time!!)

Grow up!

Life is not all about falling in love. I have a couple of aquaintances who "get bored" and have had countless partners and have caused immeasurable hurt and damage over the years.
They will end up lonely as no-one decent (with their history) will take them seriously now.
Look into your future how do you want it to pan out. Falling in love is a great drug, a temporary fix, that doesn't always result in a good solid stable relationship.
Keep your secret to yourself, and think of ways to stop being bored that involve your DH.

farfallarocks

Would you like some toast?

Yes please :)

How are you OP?