Panicking - please advise - apologies, long

[BlackBlackBlack]

I've namechanged for this. Am a longtime lurker but only have a few posts, still I don't want to out myself.

This is terrible. Last summer I had an affair with someone I'd known for about 8 years. He was then my boss, and previously had been in a position of trust in relation to me. I had very strong feelings for him, which I am working on resolving in individual counselling and in relationship counselling with my husband. The affair ended when OM told his wife, and I then told my husband. I am aware and remorseful of the damage that has been caused to innocent people, and have been terribly damaged myself by all of this.

We have not been in any contact since then. The nature of my work means that I can do it remotely, and so I have not set foot in the workplace (which is in another town) since the summer. He is no longer technically my boss, since he removed himself from the project and installed someone else in his stead.

Today I received an email from the funders of my project, with plans for the annual conference in the workplace of OM. OM's company are hosting the conference, and I am expected to attend to present my work, progress, research to date etc. This has prompted a massive panic attack - dry mouth, hyperventilating, pounding heart. I simply cannot bear to go to the conference - I don't want to see OM and be ignored/cut dead, and for my own sake I can't go and have any sort of conversation with him. After it all ended I went through a pretty bad period of self-harm and restricted eating, largely prompted by situations where OM would be mentioned to me by other people, and I really don't want to go back to that place. More than anything, I don't want to undermine the rebuilding that my DH and I have been doing by having a flood of old feelings come back when I haven't resolved it all yet.

WTF do I do?? Should I pull a sickie at the last minute? Claim to be double-booked? I'm pretty sure that some of the funders know about the affair (neither OM or I have told them, but let's just say that the line of work the funders deal in would make it in their interests to be aware of such things. Sorry, that sounds ridiculously cloak-and-dagger and drip-feeding, but I really can't say any more than that), which makes the whole thing even more difficult.

I'm so worried and frantic about this, am shaking and teary as I am writing. The email I got was a follow-up to a 'save the date' email which apparently had been sent round before, but I didn't get that one for some reason.

Please, please, please someone give me some advice on how to handle this.

Is this the first real test of "doing as much as you can" which so far seems to have entirely consisted of removing yourself from all that terrible temptation and rather a lot of self punishment. ?

You are failing the challenge miserably, tbh.

How am I failing the challenge?

Because if I were your husband I would be absolutely petrified about now, that despite you removing yourself from the situation for months, as soon as you have to be in the same room as the OM you go to pieces.

I would wonder why that was. I would wonder if I was the fall back position. It wouldn't make me feel secure.

Bottom line, I would be wondering why it was all so much about you which is where I came into this thread.

I think you should steel yourself and do the presentation.

I think you need to talk with the counselor re the presentation. Unless you can feel ok about it and it is ok with your dh I think you should back out with a good excuse (hols or op). It's not worry the stress frankly and will upset your dh / possibly bring back all kinds of feelings.

You are clearly still trying to work out how to move forward with your marriage and may or may not stay together. I wouldn't throw this presentation into the mix which will create its own set of issues tbh.

worth