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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

"when good people have affairs"

111 replies

confusionoftheillusion · 06/05/2013 08:13

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

OP posts:

Chubfuddler · 06/05/2013 17:40

Cognitive dissonance

Look it up op.

You're very good at it but you don't seem to know what it is. It's the reason you could cheat on your husband and convince yourself it's ok not to tell the truth.

KatieScarlett2833 · 06/05/2013 17:48

I think if you were truly honest with yourself you would understand that all the books and validation and counselling in the world will not erase what you are doing to your husband, your children, the OM's wife and their children. Right now.
Someone who is truly repentant would take steps to make sure this never happens again. The only way you can save your family and regain your self-respect ( which is what you are really looking to do) is to do the decent thing and let your DH in on your sordid secrets.
The fact that you are unwilling to do that speaks volumes.
I think that you can probably learn from this and become a better person. You need to do the work, though. And I'm not at all convinced that you want to do that.
The ongoing deceit is what makes you a bad person. And all the books in the world are not going to lance that boil. Only you can do the right thing.

AuntieStella · 06/05/2013 17:48

Your affair isn't "one mistake" - it's thousands of them. One after another, deliberately and repeatedly meeting, contacting, thinking about the OM at the expense of putting thought, emotion and energy into your family.

Ilikethebreeze · 06/05/2013 17:49

Do not have any experience of affairs.
But would imagine it would take lots and lots and lots of little mistakes.

I feel like I am talking to a 6 year old.

Ilikethebreeze · 06/05/2013 17:52

www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html

This is an interesting link

AuntieStella · 06/05/2013 17:55

For ease of reference, OP has a concurrent thread and it is here.

pickledginger · 06/05/2013 17:58

The title sounds like an exercise in abdicating responsibility for one's actions. A one night stand might be a mistake. An ongoing affair with a married man when you're also married is a big shitheap of conscious choices.

KatieScarlett2833 · 06/05/2013 17:58

Oh and a mistake is a one off.
You've been cheating for 4 months.

KatieScarlett2833 · 06/05/2013 17:59

And while we are doing Q&A. Please convince me why it is OK in your world not to tell your DH?

BlackBlackBlack · 06/05/2013 18:00

confusion I can speak from some experience, having had an affair last year. I told my DH about it. Everything exploded, really painfully for everybody concerned - my DH and OM's DW most of all. It is now over between OM and I, and we have not been in contact for 8 months. For the first while, NC was excruciatingly difficult, but it has gradually receded and I can see now that it is the only way forward.

If you want to try and make your marriage work - and I'm not saying you have to - then I strongly, strongly urge you to tell your DH about all of this. I couldn't have begun to rebuild my marriage without being honest with my DH. I am still in counselling to try and figure out all the things which led me to do what I did in such a destructive manner, and DH and I also went for some relationship counselling together. Being honest with my DH turned out to be really important for me too, because it meant that I had to stop compartmentalising everything about the affair into my own little cocoon, and more importantly I stopped viewing him as a sort of pathetic cuckolded figure - this was crucial to begin viewing him again with the respect that he deserved.

You can read all the books you like to try and figure out thing for yourself, but honesty with your DH is the only way, in my experience, that you can hope to salvage anything and build the sort of meaningful relationship that can last.

Hang in there. It's tough and difficult, but you can do it.

Sunshineandflowers · 06/05/2013 18:01

Of course you can have a hard copy of that book! Hide it in your bag. Or your car. Or your drawer at work. Ask a friend to look after it for you. Buy it, read it, take it to the charity shop after.

If you want to read it and sort this out you will find a way.

KatieScarlett2833 · 06/05/2013 18:02

Thank you Black. That is exactly what I mean.

happyAvocado · 06/05/2013 18:14

I am copying from that other thread:

"I think no-one would have predicted the impact it(ex's cheating) had on our kids, his siblings, me most of all

ex's siblings hate him for what he's done to me and his kids, however they can't say - oh well, we won't see him ever again

so I was avoiding christmases with them - my kids love going there as I have no family in UK
that is how they grew up - having christmases with their cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents, so ex is there too, and I felt sick having to be with him in the same room on happy occasions like that
I love his family, they are on my side and now just over 4 years since I found out he was seeing someone else I can just about to be in the same room as him

he also decided to tell the kids - he had an affair, so my kids are torn between loving him and hating the same time

if you want to be hated by his family - carry on, but you will never be part of his life the way you would like to be

I also ended up with a bad depression for quite few months after we split. I would not wish that on anyone"

BlackBlackBlack · 06/05/2013 18:15

Also, I just wanted to say that I think the title of that book is ridiculous.

EVERYONE has it in them to do good and bad, and I don't think a mistake, or a series of mistakes, or a bad decision defines a person's character once and for all. Describing people as 'good' or 'bad' is really unhelpful, in my opinion. I think that holds true for the OP (who seems to be clinging to the idea that she and the OM are good people), and for all the posters who are writing the OP off as a bad person. The spectrum of human behaviour is much more complicated than good people and bad people.

happyAvocado · 06/05/2013 18:17

I guess OP would like to perhaps see this equation confirmation....

good=honest

Springdiva · 06/05/2013 18:25

I see the title as a bit tongue in cheek ie 'good' people means, good according to what most people think of as good and not that they are some sort of perfect being, just that they are not the philandering cheater who might first come to mind, they are ordinary.

happyAvocado · 06/05/2013 18:26

yeah, perhaps good means average, normal?

Springdiva · 06/05/2013 18:49

Well 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce and many no doubt due to affairs so, maybe not average, but a big proportion.

AnyFucker · 06/05/2013 18:59

Op only "finished" it with OM yesterday?

Right

BlackBlackBlack · 06/05/2013 19:02

AF everyone has to start somewhere!

Selba · 06/05/2013 19:07

I think you are quite right not to tell your husband.
Hope things work out .

happyAvocado · 06/05/2013 19:10

I don't know what OP should or should not do as in : telling her DH

she certainly needs more than just to read a book or two, there may be a lot of other issues and I would suggest counseling

wheredidiputit · 06/05/2013 19:26

AnyFucker Mon 06-May-13 18:59:57

Op only "finished" it with OM yesterday?

Right

Yes like she did in January, March and god knows how many other times since they started the affair.

Neither OP or Om can make a break of either their marriages or affair until one of them does and BOTH are honest with their partners will this situation be solved because everyone is lying or being lied too.

AnyFucker · 06/05/2013 19:35

Indeed

This thread is a waste of everyone's time, including the op

BlackBlackBlack · 06/05/2013 19:36

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