happily married for 20+ years, slept with a man on a business trip, really need help

[scorpiomyrtlock]

This was about 6 weeks ago, I met the OM abroad, we slept together twice and I am due to meet him again next week when he visits UK. I am so confused, meeting him again will mean lying to my DH. I am sure everyone will tell me not to do it but of course I know that better than anyone. I don't recognise myself. I love my husband and there is nothing wrong in our marriage. Neither of us has ever been unfaithful. We have a good sex life with lots of novelty. I don't want to leave him or for him to change. None of this is his fault. Its just that having someone else telling me they find me attractive, etc and a person in my own right rather than just wife/mother/business partner after so long with one person is an indescribable high. I had never been in the position where I had to resist temptation before - I thought I would be able to easily, I was so shocked that I gave in so easily - in fact I was an equal instigator in the affair and in the subsequent arrangement to meet up again. I am sure posters will come on here and tell me to just stop what I am doing. I want to stop but at the same time I don't. Its like a drug that I know is bad for me but I can't resist. I'm otherwise a stable well balanced person (or so I thought) I am terrified that my DH will find out. I haven't told anyone. If you knew me you would think I was the last person to do this. Has anyone else succesfully resisted temptation after being faithful for so long? Literally how do you stop thinking about the OM? I cannot get the thoughts of him out of my head. I don't want to be with him (he is married) and he is totally unsuitable for me. This is driving me crazy. I thought these feelings would go away after a few weeks but they are getting worse.

It is all bottling up and I have no one to talk to. I can't go for counselling I would have to explain to my DH why and as far as he knows I am happy.

Agree with Sassyb...give us your DH's details and MN massif will tell him to 'leave the ***' You're lucky to have got away with it so far. Just don't do it.

you need to limit how much contact you have with him and you need to cancel next week
you will eventually stop thinking about him

I know that sounds simple but it's true and it will work

This really isn't worth throwing your marriage away for and the pain and distress you will cause to yourself and others just isn't worth it from what you have written

OP you have already crossed the line. You took a risk for your ego the hell of it, still have a chance of putting this behind you, getting counselling to work out why you did it and then either telling him or keeping quiet for ever and living with what you have done to yourself and to him. Forever, btw means forever.

Alternatively, you go meet this man, take an even bigger risk on home ground and for what? You already had the cheap thrill reassurance from it, you don't want him and the sex was mediocre. Is any of this worth loosing your DH and the life you know? I doubt it.

It is within your control, just stop it now unless you are prepared to loose what you have. Fast forward a year, you are divorced, have publicly made a fool of yourself, DH is moving on with a new girlfriend and having great sex with her instead. The lovely life and home you have now is gone. Is that what you want? You know what you have to do.

Crossed posts with Spamm, you are getting very similar views on here OP.

Oh and by the way, you are coming accross as a giddy teenager, not a cool, calculated cheater. Which means your chances of this coming out are skyhigh.

Even if you change tack and get better at deciept at the speed of light , it is still not within your control. He may be married or involved, despite anything he told you to the contrary, he may not be good at covering thngs up, he may even confess.

Your spouse wouldn't be the first to get a bucket of freezing cold shock hurled at them down the phone by the other furious spouse.

Each and every contact you have with him increases your risk of being caught and all it entails.

If you are finding the derision and disgust people are showing towards you hard going...well get used to it. Becuase it will be a damn sight worse when it is friends, family and neighbours looking at the rubble of your family knowing that you were the one that bombed it to oblivion and making their opinion of you known.

Well I was monogomous for 25 years - does that count?

When I was widowed at 46 years old, lots of married men 'hit on me'. I actually lost lots of couple friendships because I was the single YOUNG widow.

I was bereaved, lost and lonely for 3 years but I would never have messed with someone elses's marriage for my own gratification. I came up with a phrase for any phone calls/texts from married men..... "It is not appropriate".

I am still on my own 11 years after my DH's death, but I can hold my head up high and know that I have never, ever tangled in someone else's relationship. I have too much self dignity (and value of marriage) to do that!

If your marriage has been as good as you say, for many years, there is every likelihood that your DH will begin - maybe already has - to sense that something has changed, and question what that is. Questions can lead to guilty confessions, which in turn lead to pain, unbelievable hurt, and broken marriages. You are playing with fire.

Thumb witch gives excellent advice.

Where are you expecting this to go, how many more times are you going to meet him? This isn't a romantic love story, is actually quite seedy, meeting in hotel rooms to get your rocks off, take off your blinkers for the sake of your husband.

Oh and please tell me you used a condom?

At the moment you are acting like a selfish, selfcentred person. What makes you feel so entitled that you can go around fucking other people. Your poor husband.

Oh and by the way, you are coming accross as a giddy teenager

Couldn't agree more SB

The OP appears to be looking for permission to meet up and have more sex with her illicit lover.

Grow up OP! Treat your husband with greater respect!

Get yourself checked for STIs and - if positive - you will have a whole new thread on here. "How do I tell my lovely husband that I have had sex with someone else and contracted a STI"

Just text him now, cancel the meet up and then block his number.

It will take you a minute to do.

You should then arrange some counselling, as there is obviously a need to get to the bottom of why you would jeopardise a happy marriage for a sordid meet up with someone you don't really know.

Just think about your life if your dh, children, family and friends find out what you are doing.

I have too much self dignity

But you have empathy. Maturity. A real sense that your wants don't trump other people's needs. Evident in the lonlyness you were prepared to endure for the sake of not causing another harm.

None of which applies to the OP.

Who thinks somebody rubbing an engorged bit of his body into a wet bit of hers until it squirts is worth throwing a rock in a lake where the resultant ripples represent layer upon layer of innocent bystanders who get hurt to ever greater degree.

I hope she's never said she'd die for her kids, cos it is patently bollocks. She doesn't seem willing to even strengthen her knicker elastic with a little bit of will power for their sake.

With any luck the husband will fight to get custody of any younger kids in the resultant meltdown. They are going to be better served by being cared for by the one parent who hasn't done anything to prove they have no self control or a very warped sense of proportion.

I don't think it is (ever) just about the sex

The fact that you have posted here shows you know it's wrong. You don't ever want to be with the man, sex wasn't that good but most importantly you've been happily married for all those years and you still have a great sex life.

I wouldn't even bother to text the OM back, just simply organise something with your family and be happy with them. In fact delete his number and change yours if possible. Don't ruin 2 families for a quick shag.

I am so grateful for all of this. Everyone is right. It is hard to read it.
I needed to hear harsh words and reality. Thank you
I have been behaving like a teenager and that is how I am feeling when I definitely should know better. I wish I could
have been as strong and sure of myself as those writing on here. I cannot defend my actions.

I agree with everybody else OP. If you have no respect for yourself, your husband or your marriage, if you want to break his heart, devastate your parents, your kids and your friends, destroy your home and suffer financial hardship then sure pop along to the Holiday Inn for some mediocre sex.
That isn't what you want is it?

Cut contact, get a grip and hope to hell you can get away from this with everybody's hearts intact.

x posted - sounds like a grip is indeed being got. Good work.

Did you use a condom btw? Because if not you need to tackle the STD issue now.

Good. Now sort yourself out, cancel the planned meet up, ditch the OM completely and learn to act your age gracefully.

And please, don't tell your DH - what would be the point of hurting him?
(And yes, I'd say the same to a man in the same position. One stupid mistake is not worth breaking someone's heart over, unless it's a fore-runner to many more stupid mistakes.)

I wish I could have been as strong and sure of myself as those writing on here. I cannot defend my actions

No!

This is no a case as "could have been"..you chose NOT to be.

You are not a helpless victim in this who had something happen beyond her control.

You picked this.

The distiction is important. For your own sake you need to acknowledge that this was an active choice not a passive fall due to a temp. character failing. Becuase you need to know not why this happened, it happened becuase you wanted it to, but rather, why you have allowed to get your priorities so distorted.

..., why you have allowed yourself to get your priorities so distorted.

There, that's better.

1. Paint a vivid little picture in your head of you and the OM in the hotel room getting down to it. Include all the salacious details you can think of. Make it really real. I'm sure you've done it already in fact.

1. Replace the OM with your DH and yourself with another woman. Use the same realism you used with the first image. See how it feels

You don't hate your DH so dont do this. Please. You cannot imagine the hurt.

And please, don't tell your DH - what would be the point of hurting him?

Becuase he deserves to know. Becuase he ought to have at least the opportunity to choose for himself if this is something he can live with in his marriage. Becuase he is a human being in his own right and should be allowed to chose his pwn destiny rather than have his head patted without his knowledge and it decided by somebody who knows better than he wht is good for him.

Of course this may mean throwing the kids under the proverbial bus because telling him could break up their happy home and the outcome for kids from stale homes that collapse can be poor.

So via one choice, she now has to make another. Who does she pick, her husband or her kids. Becuase both sides deserve her best effort, but she has placed herself in a position where she has to fail to do the right thing by one side down for the sake of the other.

Can't sweep this under the rug as "don't break his heart over a sily mistake", she has placed her family on two sides of a coin and whatever she decides she may well be letting part of her family down very badly indeed.

It's a godawful fucking mess. There are no nice, tidy "rightous" solutions. It's all choosing where to go with damage limitation at this point and working out which person you love gets given priority.

Enjoy the travelodge off the M6, the warm Asti Spumante and the sick feeling when you hear him on the loo the next morning.

You describe very well the addiction that is an affair.

And the lies, distortions and character bending - and the sacrifice of EVERYONE you love - in order to fulfil that addiction.

Good luck Scorpion. Tell us what you decide. And can I also add the advice PLEASE don't tell your husband. You have no idea of the pain.

This is your guilt, for you to process, on your own. Good luck, tell us what happens.