Help please I am desperate

[Ihavemessedup]

I don't know if anyone else is up? I have done a stupid bad thing and I am now feeling I have nothing left to love for.
I have had a short affair. Caught an sti.
OM doesn't want to know. Says we aren't meant to be together. He also caught it. We don't know who it came from. Both been tested safe. (And seen results).

There is no way back from this. My husband will obv catch it too and therefore know.

Why should I hang around.

The kids will surely find out.

My life is not worth living.

Altho if I am posting maybe I care?

1, Drop OM. Forget about him (or act as if you have)

1. Tell your partner. Seeing his pain might well help to kill the addiction.
2. Move out as you had planned (but not to be with OM obviously). Get your head together, give yourself space to think it all through. Ditto for your H.
3. Counselling

Don't try to hide things, don't run away (suicide), put your children first.

HTH x

What do you do with any other addiction: alcohol, drugs? You go cold turkey. Stop FEEDING the addiction. Get rid of ALL contact. Is this prince married himself?

We can all see he is an utter knob who doesn't really care about you, I hope you are able to face this soon (you will be very angry when you do).

Get yourself into counselling, I would say twice a week at this stage. It will be such a relief when you find someone who hears you, and takes you seriously.

You are starting to address the original feelings (SAHM, being taken for granted). Go to counselling, face how you are going to move on from this moment and how you are going to deal with your H. Personally, I wouldn't tell him about the affair, because that is just offloading your guilt and his agony will be too much to bear.

But I don't know about the std factor.

What do you do?

You think long and hard about how your dp/ children will react. You will think about the impact on their lives. Think about how they will feel to know how you put getting your leg over in front of their family. Think about how your dp will feel when he realises he is not the love of your life and you have spent your married life being in love with someone else.

Then cut all contact, everything. Facebook, email. Everything.

Moving out may be a good idea so you can decide if you want to remain married or not. Independent of OM.

As for you comments about putting everyone in front of you and do you have accept you are only a wife and mother. This is you looking to jusitfy what you are doing.
You don't have to accept that 'wife and mother' are your only roles in life. But the alternative is not to shag an ex and devastate you family. A wife and mother is part of who you are and therefore is part of any major decisions you make.

Being a good wife and sahm doesn't give you license to behave how you wish and say its in the name of 'finding yourself'.

Over the last few years you have done things for yourself, as you have said. But mayb they are not the right things. Or maybe you just don't want to be with your dp, in which case all the hobbies in the world won't fix it. And he deserves to be with someone who thinks he is the love of their life and doesn't spend the marriage wanting someone else.

I know I sound a bitch. but honestly OP your posts come across as though you think you are a victim and helpless in all this. As though you just woke up and found yourself in this position. You didn't. Your choices brought you to where you are.

I have a suspicion that if or when it ends with OM, you will drift into another affair with someone else. Am I right?

It's more likely that he shagged someone with it and gave it to you.

This big love affair that you were having: he wasn't. He was having no strings sex and you're messing with the plan by wanting to leave your DH.

You are indulging in a lot of self-pity here. Please, don't keep painting yourself as the victim of self-sacrifice. You will be doing your DH a great disservice if you stay with him.

He deserves to be with someone who wants to be with him. Not someone who has to stick it out because the man she fucked doesn't want her anymore.

This is not just about you, much as you would like it to be.

Give your DH the chance to be with someone who deserves him. Then stay alone while you work out what exactly you want. That way, you can't hurt anyone else.

And do you really think you can only find yourself by having an affair? Really? Have some self-respect. Sorry but really.... Perhaps you could get a job? Train for a marathon. Volunteer. Do you think you could be depressed? I can't see any other reason you'd think having an affair was a good way to find yourself...

You may never really want to, but there is such a grown up thing as doing things because they are the right thing to do and not something you really want to do. This is the right thing to do, and if you won't do it for yourself (because it is a good thing for you to let go of this fantasy you have been indulging in) then do it for your OH and your DCs. The longer you consciously force yourself to do the right thing the better you will feel about it and the stronger you will feel.

You are never going to stop contact or want to stop contact if you wait until the mood is right/wind is blowing in the right direction/moon is in Capricorn, etc. You are never going to want to stop contact while still indulging in your fantasy and contacting him. You have to go cold turkey.

You need to act like a grownup. You are not a lovestruck teenager. This is obsession and it is neither right nor healthy. You need to learn to say no to yourself.

You don't need to put everyone before yourself. You need to put your genuine self esteem and self pride first and start living wholly in reality. To do that you need to deny yourself the indulgence in fantasy that you have allowed yourself. You need to put the DCs and OH first in this respect though -- what they have in their home and family is real and in the case of the children the only life, home and family they have ever known. You need to make it as real for you as it is for them. Being in love with a man for 28 years is not living in the real world. You need to engage only with reality and end the fantasising.

If you have been in love with this OM for 28 years you have held something of yourself back from your OH and children. If you have recently spent 5 consecutive days with him, where have your family been all that time? Don't play the martyr here. Start looking at what you have and being genuinely grateful. Maybe begin keeping a gratitude journal? It will help you focus on what is real in your life. There are gratitude journal apps you can download, and a book by Sara Ban Breathnach that could get you started. You should do this even if you don[t want to.

Please read NoraG's post and think about it.

It seems to me that you are in the grip of an addiction - an addiction to a person. Addiction is the same across the board: the substance/behaviour is used to escape real life, usually because real life is too painful to face for a myriad reasons. We're talking unbearably painful.

If you get along to a therapist at the very earliest, you will be able to start working on why you are throwing your life and peace of mind away for what is, essentially, a total con; a construct that is used to escape personal responsibility. That sounds harsh but it isn't - there could be any number of reasons why some of us find real life unbearable and genuinely don't know how to take responsibility for our lives.

At the moment, your addiction has got you by the throat and you very probably feel entirely helpless to stop it. That's a good place to be in one sense, though it is extremely painful. Along with booking a therapist at your earliest convenience, you could look into attending 12-step programmes that deal specifically with addiction to a person/people. Coda is one such place, find the meetings here . You will meet people like you and that in itself is a balm, as the general population finds the addict repugnant and you don't need that, not at this stage, anyway. You will come to the stage where you loathe the addiction that has you by the throat, but you will learn to separate yourself from it and start learning to cherish who you really are - probably for the first time in your life.

I am currently seeing a hypnotherapust and NLP counsellor. We are doing work on self-love and specifically work on loving my inner child. Apparently leaving addictions behind is all about learning how to nurture and care for your inner child.
So at the moment, your inner child is screaming and tantruming for something that will do neither you or her any good. Learning to nurture her is about learning to say no to the screaming and finding the way to give her what she is missing.
She doesn't need the chocolate though she may want it, but the apple as an alternative, though it is less appealing, is the option that will provide the longer term gratification and nourishment.