Having an affair with my soulmate but feel sick with guilt about kids :(

[HollieHelen]

Hi there, can't believe I'm posting this, I just have nowhere to turn for advice on this IRL.
Basically am having an affair with my highschool sweetheart from nearly 18 years ago. When I say affair we haven't slept together and we live hundreds of miles apart so only meet up rarely (every month or so) but we have kissed (and more) and text each other loads every day.
We've both said we love each other and via text / in person we've discussed everything about being together in the future, right down to what jobs we?d do, having more kids ? but always avoiding the thorny questions of when / how it would actually happen. I have 2 kids and he has 1.
Am torn between wanting to stop this if it?s not going anywhere (though this would really break my heart as I love him so much), and trying to work out a plan for the future that might potentially work ?
Have just been reading stuff online about kids and affairs and divorces though and it makes me feel sick with guilt. DH is a really, really wonderful father and I know it would be terrible for the kids if we split up. But I just can?t reconcile that with the way I feel about this other guy who truly is my soulmate.
If I turn my back on this, I might regret it my whole life, and then I would resent the kids as being the only thing holding me back from finding happiness.
Please help!!
HH xxx

"Yogii Fri 24-May-13 08:45:36
Tell your H it's for the kids' sake that you're with him. If that's the only reason you're going to spend the next decade or more with him, he deserves to know."

Yep cant help but get the impression this man is going to be dumped as soon as the kids have left.

Look, if you think you can really make it work with your husband, and not just a "for now until the children are old enough" but in a growing old way, then yeah go for it, but if not, at least have the decency and show your husband some respect for once and let him have a say in this decision.

Otherwise, ten, fifteen years down the line, he is going to have his world ripped apart out of the blue, while you have spent the last 10 years merrily planning for that day. You let him know now, he may want to try and work on it with you, or he may not, and that is it and he has the chance of finding someone who actually loves him, but at least he will have the choice.

This is all about you making decisions and choosing, while the poor sod you are married to knows nothing.

I agree with Tony, can't really see that you treat your dh with respect and without respect really what is there?

Imo you need to tell your dh you fancy someone else and it is causeing problems in your relationship. That you will not see or contact the person you fancy but need counciling and to work on your marrage with dh.

He has a right to know his marrage is at stake and how you feel about him.

I would say if you cant be honest with him there is no way it will work or change as dh doesnt know the whole situation.

He is not just your dh but a person in his own right with feelings, needs and wants of his own. Respect him enough to handle the truth and make his own choice.

Tell him the truth, move out to give him some thinking space and take it from there.

It's good that you've ended this affair but I hope that means absolutely no contact at all with the OM.

One of the things I feel you need to address is your motivation for ending it. From what you've said about you being more committed to the OM than he was to you, I wonder whether you ending this has been motivated by self-interest again, rather than an altruistic motive to stop doing something you know will be harmful to others.

I think you need to be honest with yourself about that.

If the OM had promised yesterday to leave his wife and baby and set up home with you, what would you have done?

This greatly affects what happens next in your marriage and in what you will learn about yourself. If you've worked out that you weren't as important to the OM as he was to you and that he was therefore never going to be able to give you what you wanted, ending this has been self-protective. But it also means that you might now view your husband as the 'second prize' and you might also be at risk of having another affair in a quest to make a man choose you above all others.

Affairs like this don't always start because of low self-esteem, but when they end like this, they are notoriously bad for it. It's not unusual therefore for someone whose ego is disproportionately defined by men's attention to keep having affairs in the hope that eventually, a man will make the ultimate sacrifice for her. So this is something I'd urge you to think about and take steps to avoid.

I'd think about how 'losing' in this affair is going to impact on your feelings for your husband, too. Your attitude towards him and your marriage are not going to be helped by regarding him as the safe option after this loss.

I feel sorry for your husband, hes a last resort, an after thought, and an inconvenience to your selfish drives, its all about you and no one else, this man you'll resent for being there and he doesnt even know about it.

Do you really want your marriage to work ie for life or just til the kids are old enough, then rip his life apart and take him for a ride?

From what I've read so far, if this cheater said lets go into the sunset, you'd drop your DH and rip the kids away from their home, just to get what you want.

You need help for yourself to help discover why you so selfish towards the ones who love you, and give yourself to a man who only wanted to shag you.

I don't buy that she has drawn a line under it and agree not to talk again. I know how many times you tell OM that it's over but always go back regardless

Well done OP, you are doing the right thing. Good luck.

How is it the right thing? She holds all the cards and has all the choosing to do. Her Dh is the unknowing fool in this little drama. He is not being allowed to even know that there is an issue, and knowing that he is second choice.

And i doubt she has gone from:

" But I just can?t reconcile that with the way I feel about this other guy who truly is my soulmate. - If I turn my back on this, I might regret it my whole life, and then I would resent the kids as being the only thing holding me back from finding happiness. "

To cutting contact completely and actually working on her marriage on 2 days.

Her choice has been between OM and DH, and if OM would leave his wife and small baby, then OM would be her choice. So her DH is second choice, and if he is second choice, she should have the guts to leave him regardless of what the OM is doing. Her Dh deserves to be first choice for someone and be loved for who he is, not just because he is a good father and you don't want to have to share custody of your kids or lack the courage to actually leave and be alone.

DH is not second choice because he is the kids' dad and they adore him so that makes us a family. OM and I are not a family.
If there were no kids involved and OM said let's ride off into the sunset then yes I would, but there are kids involved so I have to stay for them. And by that I don't mean until they're grown up. My dad left when I was 17 and that was terrible.

I have an idea. Email your soulmate and tell him you are going to tell your H about the affair and then your H will tell Mrs Soulmate. Tell him how excited you are about finally getting together with him without all the lies. Then see what happens.

Hurrah! Just read your update.

But please tell your H. Tell him that you got too close to someone and it frightened you that it could happen. And that you need to work on your connection with him.

Why would I do that? I know what would happen - he would say that he wasn't going to leave her. Anyway I'm not going to leave DH like I said.

Hollie, its not about either men, its about the thrill and drama this has created, its curing you of your bordem. You've created a fantasy with a willing person, and you get off on the thrill of it, now your too far in, and realising what the fuck am i doing.

Stop thinking about how boring your life is, and start looking at your life as it is, all the nice yummy things you like about your life.

Write a list about all the nice things you value in your husband as the person he is and what about being his wife and having him as your husband, and being in a couple that you once enjoyed

Write about being a mother and what being a mother to your children means to you.

Instead of putting all your fantasies into a user, put them into writing and enjoy them.

"If there were no kids involved and OM said let's ride off into the sunset then yes I would"

This makes him second choice. As a man, he is second choice.

You leaving would not stop him being the kids dad or them adoring him.

So, what is your plan when the kids have left home? You plan on being with dh for the rest of your lives? Since you have admitted you are only staying with him because of the children.

You have to stay for the kids, you you you. Well you know what, your dh is very unlikely to want to stay with you knowing that you are only staying with him because you have children together.

You have been selfish carrying on this affair, knowing that you would never really leave your dh, as "I have to stay for the kids" as if it is you making the huge sacrifice here. And you will continue to be selfish and having to lie to your husband, unless you actually let him know what has been going on.

Why don't you come clean (including the bit about running off into the sunset with the om if you didn't have children)and ask him if he feels like he is second choice or not eh?

Yes I will stay for the rest of our lives - we'll still be the kids' parents even when they've left home.
I will look into counselling before thinking about telling DH as if this is just all in my head I don't want to hurt him just because of a stupid fantasy of mine.

Are you going to have no contact at all with the OM?

Not texting will be really hard but I am going to try. We live far apart and have no mutual friends so there's no chance of meeting other.

That should have been meeting each other.

When I say not texting will be really hard I'm not looking for sympathy what I mean is it has come to dominate my life, which I find scary, so now I need to use that time and brain space to do stuff with/for DH and the kids.

Delete his number and anything else that means you cant give into temptation.

Has there been any contact since the break-up conversation then?

You know I can probably also say that I wouldn't be with with DH still if we hadn't had kids. In fact I've had that conversation with my DH.

This is because I think of I hadn't had kids I would have continued my pattern of serial monogamy without ever really having a reason to break it. I know enough about my flawed pesrsonality to know that I seek and thrive on the excitement of a new relationship, I seek those heady thrills at the start, I 'fall in love' easily, and out again easily, I get bored, I get critical, I get discontented, I move on.

Or at least I used to and I suspect without children I would have continued to, and would have ended up divorced, and unhappy.

This does not mean I only stay with my DH 'for the children' as some of you seem to be implying of Hollie.

I stay because I want and love being a family unit, I love that my DH is commited to us, and I'm commited to him and them, I love that we're united in bringing up the children who are ours and who only we can love as we do as their parents, I love that we have a shared goal in life that we both put this above everything else, I love that we work hard together for this, I love that together we create family memories that we can share forever.

This is why marriage is about more than just the romantic love, and why I've given up my endless pursuit of high of romantic love highs because of the children or our family not forthe children.

And I'm thinking this is what Hollie is now also hoping to achieve.

It's probably more accurate to say its because we are a family rather than because of the children. Because we had children my DH became my family and not just a man I'd fallen in love with and married.

He is the only man who could be the father of my children (that I have) but I know I could go around 'falling in love' quite easily.

I hope Hollie, that this episode is a learning curve for you, about your own flaws, reactions, coping mechanisms, and what it is you really want.

Sorry if I've rambled a bit there about me, I just thought it may help address all the simplistic 'don't just stay for the kids comments.'

Once again Charbons post are spot on about this, please read those carefully I think they should be very useful to you.

When things start to go wrong again in your current relationship you will go running back to OM for a pick me up, gurantee it. It is hard to break off something that makes you feel alive but it's not real and you have to look at what you have that you could lose. I don't think any of this needs to come out, just think you need a good time to think, get it out your system. Fall back in love with your husband, make him your soulmate I'm sure your his, keep your chin up x

"In fact I've had that conversation with my DH" And there is the difference.

You know, I probably could not 100% say I would be with Dh if we didn't have kids, as it is a hell of a lot easier to walk away when you don't have children to add into the mix. So certain things we have overcome, we did because we are a family and there is love and respect. With no children our lives would have taken a different path, so who knows where we would be now.

She has admitted she does not see her Dh as her "soul mate" and she has no intention of letting her Dh in on the fact that there are serious issues within his marriage and that his wife has been dreaming away about running off with some bloke. That is what is wrong. There is no respect here since she plan on pretty much lying to him for the rest of their lives, and that is what she will gave to do.

There was a thread on here a cpl months ago, where a woman, 12 years after the fact, ended up drunkenly admitting she had had a bit of a one night "fling" with a female friend. To her, it was 12 years ago and not a big deal, to her Dh, it was like yesterday,and that was it, marriage over. he felt betrayal more that she had stayed married to him, had more children with him, all the while, in the knowledge that the marriage was not what he thought it was. These things have a way of coming out, maybe not now, but say in ten years or so, and to him, it will be like it just happened.

Do you respect your dh, OP?