"when good people have affairs"

[confusionoftheillusion]

I'd like to read this book To try and understand my recent behaviour but as DH and I are living together I can't just go and buy the book. I've tried to download via iBooks (it says they don't have it) and kindle (again the search won't find it).

Does anyone know how I can download it?

Thanks

[Selba]

Agree with justarandomguy.

[Snowme]

killerRobot has succinctly summarised all you need to know.

Mumsnet is not the place to come for any kind of advice really, better off seeing a shrink.

[Mosman]

In the five years my H was having an affair he let me have another child with him and emigrate knowing that he wasn't a proper husband and neither of those things would have happened had I known about the shagging around. That really really grated that he knew and I didn't to the point of fury.

[SpecialAgentTattooedQueen]

Just

Taking responsibility is telling your spouse. He wouldn't be making the decision for her it would be for himself.

I find your advice a bit contradictory.

[justarandomguy]

Confusion, this is the wrong place to ask that question. Many of the people here are on the other end of what you have done, so you are going to receive a kicking. Its a great place to get that point of view.

Anyway good/bad/indifferent its irrelevant. Many people, including myself find themselves in your situation. Do not tell your husband unless you are looking to him to make a decision for you. If you are looking to rescue your marriage it will not help the situation one iota.

As someone else has already said you need to take responsibilty for your actions and your relationship. Which is really hard when you are in the midst of an affair, much easier said than done.

I would not torture yourself by posting here anymore if I were you. You will not receive any empathy, understandably and you are unlikely to receive much more in the way ofadvice from people looking at the situation from your perspective.

[SpecialAgentTattooedQueen]

Kotinka

Because then the husband has the choice about whether he wants to be in the relationship with the OP. That choice was taken away when OM entered the picture. It will cause pain, but if (God forbid) my DH had an affair and I never knew I think I'd feel even worse if/when I somehow found out, that he was capable of lying to me for life.

[HoneyStAngelo]

What defines a good person?

Someone who embarks on an emotional and/or sexual relationship with another partner whilst all the while pretending they love the one they are with.

This extra curricular activity is born of selfishness, deceitfulness, arrogance and shows the adulterer as being a deeply flawed person who's own self interests are more important than anyone else's.

People who have affairs try to justify it by saying they are a nice person, a good person and in many aspects of their life they probably are but ultimately it reveals them as being very weak and incapable of true compassion.

If you have been on the receiving end of your partner having an affair you will understand the damage that has been inflicted upon you. To feel sick day in, day out, the awful knowledge of being lied to and behind each smile they made at you was a longing to be with another. The pain of being cheated on is worse than any physical ailment or disease I have suffered with.

As far as I'm concerned, 'good' people don't cheat.

[SpecialAgentTattooedQueen]

AuntieStella I certainly don't disagree, I didn't mean to come across that I did.

I can't remember if OP has children or not, but violence always worries me. IMHO, once is enough and many, many women are 'satisfied' with the excuse of why they were abused to keep themselves in denial.

OP, (other than the DV) you need to stop putting yourself first. There's a wife and children who are suffering because of your 'love.'

You seem very obsessed with justifying the affair. It's not justifiable. Either accept that or keep obsessing, either way it doesn't deal with the real issues and fallout.

Only one thing. OP, are you choosing not to tell you 'D'H because you don't truly want to deal with what you and O have done, or because you're afraid he'll turn violent?

[Pomegranatenoir]

melbie I said that life isn't always happy. Marriages aren't always happy but doesn't mean you should get out. Means you should try harder and remember your wedding vows. anyone having an affair kniws it is wrong but they continue to choose to do it. first text, first meet up, taking underwear off, arranging to meet again - doesnt just happen, they make conscious decisions to do those things. My ex worked away Monday to Friday and then played extrelmely happy families sat and sun. I was also 20 weeks pregnant (woth a planned baby) in and out of hospital with hyperemesis looking after my ds singlehandedly whist he said he couldn't possibly come home from work to help because he was sooooo busy. I defo wasn't happy with him not being around but I believed that he actually was too busy and just got on with everything myself. Never for one moment did I consider leaving or having an affair I just got on with things, genuinely believing he was busy at work and trying to make a better life for us.

He wasn't unhappy, he was weak. He wanted to have his cake and eat it. He never told me about the affair, I found him out. We were the couple who people talked about as being happy because we were. My child had never witnessed an argument or seen me cry till the day I found out about the affair. Now he unfortunately knows what it is to have an unhappy parent despite me trying my very hardest to shelter him away from the sadness.

And for what it's worth there was no misery in our relationship - although I feel it in abundance now dealing with the consequences of what he has done.

Unless you have been in the situation ( and I am aware that every situation is different) then I really don't think you are educated enough emotionally to understand that it isn't a simple case of happy or sad. You are not just dealing with 2 lives, you are dealing with whole families and friends.

[AuntieStella]

OP hasn't said that much (under this user name) about that single incident (last year? After she'd met OM) other than that she is satisfied it was an out of character one-off, and that she feels in no danger since his change of meds and other changes (no longer drinks at all?).

It doesn't change some aspects. If she wants to leave her marriage, then she should leave. But that incident doesn't make cheating acceptable, and as OP has found out the hard way, cheating makes everything more difficult.

It doesn't make her any less responsible for her affair (which is itself a form of emotionally abusive behaviour). Or remove any of the need for her to take action now. He has been penitent about one single mistake: she has chosen a course which means she is making 'mistakes' daily or more frequently.

I doubt OP will want to return to DH. But what she is doing, to both families, over months, is reprehensible. This thread has been running for some months. It's decision time.

[SpecialAgentTattooedQueen]

I'm more concerned that OP that you seem to have completely justified your husband strangling you 'because he was on medication.'

Not saying the affair isn't an issue to discuss with a counsellor, (it definitely is!) But the DV should be at the top of my priority list. You seem a deeply unhappy person. A man doesn't have to 'define' you, whether it be a 'D'H or a OM.

I hope you are at the very least, safe.

[Mosman]

Well I am the wronged wife and what I can tell you is that unless you get caught or come clean this will happen again and again.
Until you are prepared to examine honestly what caused this state of affairs within yourself and your marriage this purgatory you've plunged yourself and others into is going nowhere.
From my own experience I did let my "h" get away with behaviour because my own wasn't perfect and now we are starring down the barrel of divorce.
I can accept that even as somebody who has the moral high ground, why can't you ?

[LookingForwardToMarch]

I always thought cheats to be horrible people with no morals who were totally selfish

This OP. Trust your initial instinct on this for that IS what cheaters are!

Makes me [grin| that two threads later you are still desperately trying to convince yourself otherwise.

P.S truth always outs in the end...but as a cheater you will refuse to acknowledge this.

[badinage]

Melbie as you know, lots of people in affairs aren't having them because their marriages are 'miserable'. They are having them because they are selfish enough to want two or more people at the same time.

No-one's advocating anyone staying in a 'miserable' marriage either. What they are saying is that if a marriage is untenable, it's best to leave it first before getting involved with another person.

But what they are also saying is that no relationship is happy all of the time. Hell, no life is happy all of the time. But people who are realistic about life and who don't feel entitled to happiness at others' expense tend to press on through those rough patches in marriages and life in general, without choosing to press the 'destruct' button.

[melbie]

So people should just stay in a miserable marriage then Pomegranate and Fleecy? No one should get divorced? It is better to show children the example of unhappy parents together?

Yes there will be good times and bad. But no one should stay in a life of misery. They DO deserve better.

[Fleecyslippers]

'I hope I would understand that it was because he was not happy,'

It is SO fucking depressing to hear people trot out this same old trite. Life is not a bowl of cherries, marriage and relationships are tough. It sickens me that we live in a throwaway society where people wreck lives, devastate families and live this shitty, self absorbed delusion that 'they' deserve better.

Remember those marriage vows you made ? 'For better for WORSE. Not just 'until I decide I'm not haaaaaaapy waaaaaaah'

[Pomegranatenoir]

Neo if its all about happiness then nobody would ever get into a long term relationship. Marriage is about dealing with the good and the bad together. Even more so when there is children involved. Maybe I should just tell my little son that the reason his dad isn't around to tick him into bed anymore is because it wasn't making him happy. In sure he would be fine with that explanation

[MadameOvary]

I used to be you, OP, forever cheating on my partners because they weren't giving me what I needed. I had a massive sense of entitlement that left no room for the respect the people I was with deserved. Instead I focussed on how deprived I felt. Did I try telling them how I felt? oh hell yeah. I didn't want to cheat. But they didn't listen to me. So instead of leaving I converted this entitlement into deprivation and grimly justified it...
I have changed now though. Through a baptism of fire and a slow, excruciating growth of self-awareness lasting years. I am now incapable of lying, never mind cheating. So my advice to you is, stop fannying about trying to find justifications reasons for your behaviour. You felt entitled to do it, so you did it. End of.

[tribpot]

In the Victorian era most people had no choice but to stay married. It's not hard to see how affairs were both commonplace and (to some extent) acceptable. But in this day and age people have choices - which include being free to exit one relationship before beginning another.

Of course people make mistakes, they lose their way and do things which they regret and realise are selfish and cowardly. But this poster is tragically self-deluded, as evidenced by the fact she could not download any of the self-help books that are available for the Kindle, she has to have the one that's about how good people sometimes do bad things but it doesn't make them bad.

[Chubfuddler]

In the real world where I live some people have had affairs, and their marriages have either survived or not, but even in the cases where people are happier out of the marriage they cheated on, they accept that they should have sorted out a dignified, respectful exit rather than cheated.

I must know a different calibre of people.

[KatieScarlett2833]

No one flamed Black. Why was that do you think?