I have massively screwed up my marriage, and I desperately want to get it back.

[SecretJewel]

I'm in love with somebody else :-(

We've been friends through work for a long time, but over the last year or two, we seem to have gradually fallen in love.

That sounds terrible. I have never felt like this before about anyone.

The depth of feeling that comes from loving someone based on gradually getting to know their character and personality over a long period of time has blown me away.

When I met dh, the initial attraction was all based on looks and was very much a physical thing. Obviously the growing to love each other then was based on more than that, but I still know that we would never have got that far if it wasn't for the looks thing.

The new man, I wouldn't have looked at twice across a crowded room, but I have fallen in love with him through our friendship, and now I think he is gorgeous!

Anyway, so our 'relationship' has now gone as far as kissing and texting all day every day. I can't stop thinking about him.

Apart from him and dh, there has never been anyone else in my life. I settled down with dh when I was 17. I'm now 35 and we have 3 children.

Every conscience thought that I am in control of tells me, I want to stay with dh, I want my family together, I DO NOT want to bust our lives apart.

BUT, my heart says so different. My heart is gone. I love the OM now and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.

I know the answer is 'I am in control of my own actions'. I know this and I did stop all contact with OM for a period of about 5 months. I saw him again a couple of months ago, and now we're right back to square 1.

I almost wish he didn't feel the same way. That it was just some silly one sided crush. But it's not. I'm going to push him away. I'm going to plod on day by day with my family life, but I'm always going to know now that there is someone else out there who I could be so happy with.

I was happy enough with dh before I knew what it was like to feel like this about someone. Nothing can ever undo that now.

[deliasmithy]

So your choice is threefold:

1. Bridges of Madison County - you bury these feelings for the sake of respecting your marriage vows and children. Feel bitter and resentful.
   
2. Run off with OM, sod the emotional consequences to the dcs, they'll eventually forgive you after years of counselling - stay with om for ever or it'll fizzle out in a year or so.
   
3. Tell OH that you love someone more. Let him decide whether he wants you to stay. You never know, maybe he has also had other feelings.

[SecretJewel]

This thread has really helped me to gain some clarity. Certainly with regards to the OM situation anyway. I realise now that he was just a kind of side show to the fact that my marriage is a mess.

I think I had been a bit in denial about that before (telling myself "oh, it'll be fine when the kids get older'), and then the whole issue of developing such strong feelings for someone else has made me face up to the fact that my marriage must be crap. And that, I think, is what I'm really sad about.

So, I am not going to make any big decisions as yet. I am going to focus on myself, my career, and my friendships. I am already well on the way to doing this really, but things like this take time to become properly rewarding and fulfilling I suppose.

Not sure what will happen to me and dh. I'm hoping our relationship will naturally evolve as we leave the baby & toddler years behind.

I have thought about telling him the truth. My only motivation for doing this though is as some kind of desperate attempt to get a reaction out of him, and see what kind of feelings he can show for me. Like poking a worm with a stick. This is not a good enough reason to do it, is it?

[scottishmummy]

best wishes op.you do need some clarity,a plan, and time to reflect
i hope this resolves best it can,as it is a dreadful emotional guddle at moment
you need to act with integrity and try minimise the harm by being open

[tessa6]

OP, your relationship won't 'evolve' magically without you changing it. you will have to change how YOU behave in order to alter your dynamic and so how he behaves. And this willful passivity should be at the centre of it. The 'relationship' is not some nebulous distant thing far away from you, it is something you help create. Of course he is responsible foe his half of it and you must explore why you were attracted to emotionally unavailable men, but it seems like you're translating things into the negative to justify what you've done.

You say he's unemotional but is he also strong? You say you follow him around the house but if he perhaps unneedy? He doesn't cry or give you lots of compliments, is he honest and not prone to emotional manipulation? There are two sides to almost every quality and I bet if you looked on the underside of OM's good ones you will see someone far more deceitful, manipulative and weak, as proven already by the affair.

Telling your DH to 'get a reaction' is indeed a bad reason. But it's worrying you're not interested in any other reasons, like his right to know, or the possibility of a more mature, new relationship that could be built out of the rubble and honesty.

[DippyBlinkey]

Hi op. I do feel for you as I have been in your shoes. Our marriage was based on attraction and children followed shortly. My ex h was emotionally abusive and when things got, and had been really bad, I got involved with a friend and colleague ..all very similar to you. And as is usual, it got messy, I faced the rot in my marriage, om did not. I have to work with him, a few years down the line, talking about his happy (intact) family..mine is apart ..divorce, two children missing their dad. I am not at all proud of m behaviour, I really regret it. I still have feelings for om (and I believe he for me, am sure he would act on these) but I will not go there again. My divorce was necessary as the marriage was damaging to us all, but I still have moments where i wish we could still be together...and the affair (undiscovered) taints totally my perspective on all the things I put up with...I can't ever really hold my head up because of my secret relationship.
In a round about way, I am saying ditch the om, he would not be any different to your husband a few years down the line. Marriage eventually is a supportive friendship, a companion, your opposite rock. Give yourself you time but a bit of investment with your husband. Don't compare, it's a no brainer. Young children utterly drain a lot of relationships, you are right. I wish you happiness x

[Fairenuff]

I have thought about telling him the truth. My only motivation for doing this though is as some kind of desperate attempt to get a reaction out of him, and see what kind of feelings he can show for me. Like poking a worm with a stick. This is not a good enough reason to do it, is it?

Really? That's your only motivation. To 'get a reaction'?

My parents didn't get on. I guess my mum thought my dad was emotionally distant too because one day she cut him 'just to see if he would bleed'.

There are some weird fuckers out there.

Don't fool yourself that your marriage will naturally evolve into a happy one. You have to actually like and respect your partner for that to happen and, so far, it's still all about you and you alone.

In fact, op, you come across as quite emotionally cold yourself.

[DippyBlinkey]

There are maybe two schools of thought regarding confessing to an affair. Am not advocating which, but yes the betrayed partner should have the right to a relationship based on truth and to decide if they want to continue with the relationship.

However, the alternative perspective is that this is your baggage to carry and why hurt your spouse by burdening them with the emotional fallout of your actions.?

There will understandably be plenty of people on here who quite rightly feel that honesty should be the only policy.

My mum wa on the receiving end of several of my dads affairs..they heart her enormously, but she took him back. I thought she wa a fool, but years down the line, they work. She says she would rather have no known, but I also see it did make them face some of the issues, though to no great extent.

[Fairenuff]

How does it feel to be the ow?

Any remorse for his family at all op? Any twinges of guilt, or are you too hung up on how it affects you? If he's the type to be texting and kissing women, I expect you're not the first and nor will you be the last but I am just curious if you have any feelings towards his wife and children.

[BruthasTortoise]

Just posted on another similar thread and though i could add something to this one. My DH was the cheated on spouse in his previous marriage, his ex left him when their DC were very small. Years down the line he says that he is eternally grateful to her for doing so, their marriage was largely based on shared care of their DC and while there weren't any massive problems, they were both vaguely unhappy and had she not had an affair they would've stayed that way. As it is she left him for her OM, she left the DC with him and now he and his DC have an excellent relationship although their relationship with their DM is strained at times.

Op ask yourself how you would feel if you leave your DH for the OM and he (your DH) meets someone new? I know my DHs ex was shocked when we got together, I don't think she had considered the possibility that he would move on.

[SelfconfessedSpoonyFucker]

You are bored and feel your life is predictable and mundane. You haven't changed when with OM (although I'm sure it feels like it), you have just used secrecy and subterfuge and flattery to make you feel better about yourself. The bit that makes you 'you' is still there.

You need to stop relying on men (or other people in general) for you to be happy and find out how to be happy despite the scenery and your travelling companions. Unless you can do that the cycle will repeat only hurting the people around you.

Of course we can all feel happy and young and wonderful in that first flush of love or on a fantastic holiday or when we win a million dollars. It is figuring out how to be happy with ordinary and mundane. Otherwise you are doomed to skip from one to the other because that first flush never lasts.

I agree that the only way you can possibly save your marriage and make it work is if you put every single last tiny bit of pity for yourself and your situation out of your head. Not a single excuse. Focus solely on putting yourself in your husband's shoes and how he feels. If you can take on all the blame and accept any and all hurt and anger he feels then you have a chance to put this right. He has the right to feel hurt and angry and betrayed when he finds out. There really is no excuse so making one (even in your head) will seem like a partial abdication of responsibility. Oh also forget about thinking how bad and guilty you feel that you have upset them.

[Charbon]

Hmmm...I don't agree with some of these rather pessimistic depictions of how all marriages become. Nor do I agree that the OM is likely to be a serial offender, any more than I'd believe this had happened several times before to the OP. The future? Yes once someone has had an affair of any kind and the secret remains, repeat infidelity is a commonplace occurrence.

Of course that risk is greatly enhanced if the real issues about someone's personality aren't resolved. So if the OP continues to seek men's sacrifices for her as a means of validation, this is likely to happen again regardless of any relationship she is or isn't in. In fact this thread is unusual because these motivations are more commonly found in single women who keep getting involved in triangular relationships. The motivation and behaviour transcends the woman's attachments because it is about her and not her relationships.

SecretJewel I'd discourage your passivity about your marriage. If you continue to think it can evolve and change without your direct involvement, it will limp along in its current state until some other crisis forces its demise. This could be a crisis of your husband's or yours.

When I write on these threads, I am mindful of all the different characters in the story and not just the OP. So it's my hope that the OM takes this opportunity to repair the damage he's done to his marriage since this affair started and either makes a clean breast of it with his wife, or starts to appreciate what he could have lost and changes his behaviour. I won't vilify him any more than I would you. I think this is very likely to have been the first time he's ever departed from his values because of his caution thus far.

For you OP, I hope you'll be brave enough to find a different counsellor who will really challenge you and resolve this core issue of needing to 'win' unavailable men. As for telling your husband, as I said upthread, this is only ever advised if it would be for his benefit and the relationship's, not yours. I will add that in my experience, such revelations often yield similar admissions from the other spouse particularly if there has been long-standing distance in the marriage. You might be surprised at what you hear. Sharing secrets can have a powerful bonding effect but they can also induce explosions that cause the marriage to end. There are threats and opportunities in equal measure.

For your husband, I hope he too will find the courage and impetus to bring things to a head and resolve one way or another. I would think that fear is a primary emotion here, but in reality he should fear a listless, unhappy marriage more.

I think sorting you out and sorting your marriage out are entirely different things, but the second won't happen if the first doesn't. And if your marriage fails, unless you get some help I fear that history will repeat itself, whether you are single or attached to someone else.

[Ouchmyhead]

I hope you tell your DH about your affair, you owe him the truth. You're keeping this huge secret from him, something that effects his whole world.

IMO if you truly want your marriage to work you need to cut all contact with OM and come to DH, how can you expect to move on and build on your marriage with secrets and lies?

[SecretJewel]

Very intrigued that you say this sort if thing is more common in single women. I kind of feel as though I have been single for a good 2-3 years now. Maybe longer. Even dh is here every day, and is pretty good with practical support, I haven't had an emotional attachment or physical closeness with anyone for a long fine. So I kind of feel quite single in that respect.

Having said that, I really don't go round thinking that I want men to make sacrifices for me. Is that sort of thought process really all sub-conscious?

To me, it just felt like 2 people that like each other naturally getting closer over time (albeit with an awareness that it was at a time in my life when I as vulnerable to getting close to someone different).

Which leads me on to thinking, could he have been anyone? And I really can't see me feeling like this about anyone else. If he hadn't happened to work in the same place as me,, this would never have happened.

[SelfconfessedSpoonyFucker]

"I kind of feel as though I have been single for a good 2-3 years now. Maybe longer. Even dh is here every day, and is pretty good with practical support, I haven't had an emotional attachment or physical closeness with anyone for a long fine. So I kind of feel quite single in that respect."

You say that, but you aren't and if you don't have that intimacy then you are 50% responsible for that.

You keep trying to explain and it feels like you are trying to justify it.

As for it being anyone. Maybe not anyone, but I'm sure it could have been any number of people given the right circumstances. Work is particularly fraught because we are often looking our best and at our freshest and most rested. We come home, change into comfy (ugly) clothes and are tired after the work day.

[DIYapprentice]

If you really felt as though you were single, then leaving the marriage wouldnt' be so difficult, would it?!

You may have felt ALONE, but dont' confuse that with being single.

[Fairenuff]

The motivation and behaviour transcends the woman's attachments because it is about her and not her relationships

Quite.

This whole thread is screaming me, me, me.

Nothing wrong with that of course. If you are single.

[tessa6]

You have acted like you are single. By having a relationship with someone else. You have helped create that. I just don't understand why you keep framing everything as happening outside of you, OP, well, I do, because it protects you from taking responsibility.

I'm really glad you can see that the OM might have been a response to something you had allowed (YOU helped allow) to deteriorate in your relationship, and that the affair itself provided things you were lacking, rather than necessarily the man himself.

Practical support is good. Many women are frustrated by a lack of that.

If you feel a lack of physical intimacy and emotional intimacy can you address that with your partner in counselling or just in conversation between you? I think if you tell him something of the affair it may help this not hinder it.

[Earlybird]

Do you still work together?

If either of you hopes to save your respective marriages, one of you should find another job.

[Charbon]

'Winning' men is not subconscious for you. You've acknowledged this yourself on this and your other thread. Your DH was quite a prize before you got together and you said yourself on this one:

Dh was tricky to pin down in the beginning, and maybe that's why I had to have him. I remember lots of opportunities with perfectly lovely (and very good looking) blokes, but as soon as they made the first move, I would be turned off in an instant.

So as soon as you 'win' you back off and the game is over. It would be the same with the OM. If he agreed to a full affair, soon that on its own wouldn't sustain your interest. Only the ultimate 'prize' of him leaving his wife would give the affair new momentum. And if he did, you would lose interest instantly and it would be 'game over' for him too.

No he couldn't have been just anyone. But he could have been anyone from a number of men who fitted certain criteria. Happily attached, never had an affair before and a challenge. If he'd been single, you wouldn't have looked at him twice although he could have been a pleasant work friend.

I wouldn't read anything into feeling single, in connection with what I've said about this sort of game-playing mostly being associated with single, perennial OWs. What's more of a link is that your children are more independent now and so you have more time to focus on yourself. The game-playing I'm describing is seen mainly in single women, closely followed by childless attached women and then by women whose children are more independent. It's no coincidence that there is a rise in older women whose children have left home, participating in no-strings-affairs dating websites.

Having children and raising them often forces a hiatus in natural selfishness but as soon as that stage has passed, it can return with a vengeance. I was interested for example in what you said about being resentful about not being able to focus on your appearance as much in the SAHM years. Many parents feel the same way of course and it means nothing but idle wistfulness for the days when there was time for personal grooming - but alongside the other factors at play here, that comment seemed to carry more than average resentment.

[SecretJewel]

Well, I have told dh some cack-assed version of events.

I missed out the kissing bit, but explained about the close relationship I have had with someone else.

He gave me a hug and said, ''that's okay - I know our relationship's a mess, and it's understandable that another bloke finds you attractive.''

Since then, he's been much more attentive than normal, with little kisses, and actually looking me in the eye when he's talking to me.

I know this whole thing is coming across as 'me, me, me' but I have honestly spent years and years practically begging for affection / sex / anything. It was ruining my self- esteem completely. I've worked bloody hard to build that back up out of the home, and have managed it in spite of dh, not because of him in any way,

[Fairenuff]

How old are your children op? The eldest not more that 17 surely? They are not independent yet are they. Aren't you giving up on them a bit too soon?

[tessa6]

Sounds possible he might have had an affair at some point himself?

[SecretJewel]

Charbon - absolutely, yes. My vanity is my downfall. Really, really don't like admitting the extent of that statement, but you seem to read me very well (!).

I struggled massively with the baby stage. Both because I had difficult babies, and because I had no time to get ready. I would rather not go out than have no time to get ready properly.

I suppose it's easy to see the change in me then when I was back to spending my days with make-up and office suits on.

Are other people really not that bothered what they look like? It is something that i can't see me ever being able to change. I had years of having to face it when the kids were babies, and I never got used to it for 1 minute.

[SecretJewel]

Tessa - the thought has crossed my mind. He was one for playing around a lot many years ago when we were still teenagers ourselves, long before we married or had kids. I would be VERY surprised if there is anything more recent. He never goes out.

[Charbon]

Why did you tell him what you did SecretJewel?

I agree with Tessa incidentally - and is what I was alluding to last night. People don't need to 'go out' - as you know yourself. Many affairs are conducted in what a parther thinks are working hours.

That's honest about the vanity and I'd thought as much. Most people have some if they are honest, but I sense yours isn't helpful to your relationship with yourself and the ones with others. For example, when this OM rejects you, at least some of your hurt is going to be that an average-looking man chose another woman who, even if you've never seen her, is in your eyes less cosmetically attractive.