I told her

[Justwakingup]

I have told the wife of the MM I had an affair with.

I am feeling a tremendous amount of guilt, because I know how much she is hurting. I think I wish I hadnt, but I feel that she has a right to know.

I knew it would never make me feel good to tell her, but I dont know what to do now, I wont contact her again, I just wish I hadnt hurt her, I deeply regret the affair and I need to move on, but I feel like I have caused a huge explosion and I feel so terrible about it, I dont know how to make things better..

Does it really matter why?

No, perhaps op did not have the best motives, but how many women on here have said that they would rather know? How many women have said on here, when a friend posts that she knows her friend’s h is having an affair that the wife deserves to know?

People have affairs. It’s not right but it happens. In fact around 60% of the population admit to having affairs so it’s likely considerably more than that. And more often than not affairs end badly because on the whole they are destructive, except often the person having the affair doesn’t see that until it’s too late. It’s just too black and white to suggest that anyone getting involved with someone who is married has no consideration for anyone and deserves hurt and anguish and Carma (there is no such thing anyway).

Revenge is ultimately not the answer. However this man hasn’t only cheated on his wife with the op, he has multiple partners, so even if the op is out of the picture he is still cheating on his wife with other women. And yet it is the op getting the blame for ruining the wife’s life? Get real.

Op this self destructive behaviour is not good and is not healthy, and you need to find a way to get past it. You did something terrible and you have faced the consequences of it (possible STD’s, finding out that you weren’t actually that special), but now you have to learn from that experience and move on. You’ve told the wife, you can’t unsay it, all you can do is to be honest with her if she asks. But if she doesn’t, you have to accept that that is her prerogative and that you may never know whether she is ok.

Self loathing is going to get you nowhere. You need to move on, get some help to do that if you have to.

As for the self righteous “you reep what you sew,” brigade, everyone is human. Everyone. It’s very easy to sit on a high horse and make declarations and judgements. However I’ve lost count of the number of people I know who said they “never thought I’d be the one to have an affair,” and yet did.

And do bear in mind that while the op is partly culpable for being involved with a married man, she is not the one breaking his marriage vows, he is. And he is the one who is still seeing multiple women.

I wish DH's OW had contacted me.

I wish one of their friends/colleagues had told me.

No one is suggesting that the married man isn't at fault here, but this thread isn't about his actions, it's about hers.

Why am I making myself sound worse, I know that I am horrible and I dont know what else I am supposed to say

So it’s only right for certain people to tell the wife then?

The wife should only know if it’s someone with good intentions doing the telling? Otherwise it’s ok for her to live oblivious to the fact her husband is sleeping with multiple other women?

Because it's much easier to slate the op than it is to acknowledge that the wife does actually deserve to know and to choose whether or not she wishes to continue a relationship with someone who has slept with multiple women at one time.

WannaBe thank you for your words.

Flog, I know the family routines because I was seeing him for a long time, I got her number easily, I cant say how or I would out myself

You are not horrible.

You fucked up.

So did he.

The fall out from these things is NEVER pretty.

But people recover and move on.

I actually think you did the right thing, even though I don't think you did it for the right motives.

You need to move on now and work on yourself so that this doesn't happen again.

I do agree it's better for the wife to know, whoever and however she finds out.

What do you want from this thread?

Personally I'd wanna know whoever told me, whatever their motives.

Of course I'd rather the info came from someone sympathetic, but I'd much rather it came from someone unsympathetic than not to know at all.

So, let me get this straight.

You had an affair with a married man, and when you realized he was also two-timing you, you had to get revenge on him and punish him by telling his wife to ensure the bomb in his life would go off.

What a fine specimen of a woman you are.

White - I have been torturing myself all day, I feel ill with worry about it, I dont think I should have done it one minute and the next I think I did the right thing. I know they will hate me for it, and as much as I hate the MM for what he put me through, I dont want him to hate me. I dont want her to hate me, she did nothing wrong. Im worried about their children. I know I should have worried about all that before, but I didnt, this was a massive wake up call and I am so ashamed of myself I want to run away and hide for the rest of my life.

I also think I am going to have to tell my children because I would rather they hear it from me than someone else.

So in a nutshell, what I want from this thread is an idea of whether I did the right thing or not (not that I can change it) and how to move on, because the pain is immense at the moment and its all that is in my head.

Would you felt the need to unburden yourself and "come clean" (ha!) if you had not been "dumped" or at least faced demotion?

Qunit, when you put it like that you are right, yes I am an awful person

Thinking about this and taking your other thread into account, I think it's possible you were swept off your feet by a classic narcissist.
Nasty buggers and best avoided. Sounds like he is only interested in feeding his ego which presumably you did by falling for him so hard and "reciprocating" his feelings. Which weren't what you thought they were.

A narc will use you until you no longer give them what they want then casually discard you. No thought for you or your feelings, a narc only recognises their own.

You need to look at why you fell for him, sounds like you have serious esteem issues. Get some good counselling.

You've learnt some valuable lessons. Enough of the self-pity and self- berating. Pick yourself up, learn from this and move on.

A typical narc ( worth googling the term) will try to draw you back into their personal drama. Again for selfish reasons, NOT because they can't live without you. Just to fuck with your head a bit more. Be warned!

Ok your self-loathing shite is just plain annoying. If you really were that sorry you wouldn't have shagged him in the first place would you?

You only told her because YOU felt shit about being replaced, not because you felt guilty about your part in ruining someones life.

However, if I were her I would want to know.

Nasty. You need to do some work on your issues.
And as for all the OWs on this thread telling you that you haven't played a part in devastating a family I call BULLSHIT.
And yes you are an awful, manipulative person. The important thing now is that you don't spend the rest of your life wrecking other peoples. Counselling, CBT whatever it takes. Just sort yourself out.

Thank you Pearl that makes a lot of sense

puds - I found out about things around 3 weeks ago and have done a lot of looking at myself during that time, I know I did wrong and its like someone slapped me in the face and I realised what I had done. Thats not an excuse I know, but I really am thoroughly ashamed of my actions, I feel sick about how she feels now and I wish I could turn back the clock, but I cant.

Having an affair with a married man is crappy.

Telling his wife because you are yourself being cheated on by him and you want to hurt him back is downright horrible.

You don't give a shit about this woman. You didn't when fucking her husband and you certainly didn't when using her agonised distress as a way to hit back at the man who was never "yours" to begin with. She was an irrelevance to you from the start and then you used her at the end. Nice.

And for the record, doing it by text means he'll insist you're some crazy obsessed freak and she won't believe you, anyway. All you'll have done is hurt her. It won't change a thing for him. So no, you haven't even served the purpose of ensuring she knows what sort of shit she's stuck with.

The reality is, you were just one of his bits of fluff. You assumed you were more than his wife because you knew about her, and she didn't about you. Now you have found out you are discardable and she is not, you don't like it.

I've had sympathy for affair partners on here before. They aren't the ones who made vows and they aren't the ones betraying someone they're meant to love. Sorry, but I can't find a single scrap for you. Your selfishness, cruelty and blindness to your victim's feelings, for all your self-hating protestations, staggers me.

Are you saying you only found out he was married 3 weeks ago?

At least the wife can get her sexual health sorted out now. And know that her husband has been doing this.

Everybody will hurt for some time Just. But as a woman who found out from the other woman (or two of them) about my ex, I was glad in the end. I would have wanted to know, wish I has known earlier.

None of us are perfect. Let he who is without sin and all that.