Cautionary Tale from OW

[fuckedmylifeup]

I was relentlessly pursued by a MM whilst also married myself. This continued for the last three years. I take full responsibility for my actions but now I find myself:

On the verge of a nervous breakdown
Seeing a counsellor every week to try and get back the parts of me I lost during this damaging time
I've lost everything - my husband, my home, my job, my friends
Am on the receiving end of frequent and distressing text messages from MM's wife (and rightly so)
Grieving for two relationships - the MM (as stupid as that sounds) and my lovely dh
Devastated by the hurt i've caused dh who in no way wishes to reconcile (and who can blame him)

Whilst NOTHING has changed for MM (he is back in his marriage) - I have to start again from scratch. I'm a shell of my former self and can't see past this.

I can't eat/sleep/concentrate. I'm such a mess. Please help.

Thing is OP, if you and your husband had been okay this affair would never have happened would it? He obviously wasn't right, that is probably why you haven't had kids yet after so long together. You have probably done both of you a favour. Move on, forget the counselling, shit happens in life.

You haven't hurt me Wellwobbly - I appreciate you posting on a thread like this. I can't revisit the details at the moment.

I know age, the marriage wasn't perfect but I wish I'd poured all my energies into fixing it instead of going down this destructive selfish path. I did feel dejected that we never had a child and maybe unknowingly acted in some kind of passive aggressive way. I can't see the wood for the trees at the moment, so so upset.

We all make mistakes OP, many far, far worst than yours. Shit happens. 15 years and still no children tells its own story. Something cant have been right and maybe something like this was better than prolonging the inevitable split. As for the married man, you've dodged a bullet there, big style.

Magnamimous post Wobbly

As for this:

Thing is OP, if you and your husband had been okay this affair would never have happened would it?

That's simply not possible to determine. No marriage is perfect, but even if it is unhappy, it's never the sole cause of an affair.

This is where hopefully, the counselling can add value.

Not possible to determine charbon, of course. But the likelihood is that things were not right with OP and her husband. As for counselling adding value, well, that's also not possible to determine is it? Highly subjective call, that one.

Five years ago I went down the path you are treading OP. I had a brief affair that somehow dragged on for 18 months after MM ended it (but kept coming back for one last time...)

I was in pieces. I went for counselling and eventually told my DH because I was struggling to move past the enormity of why I behaved as I did. My H became very aggressive and despite a year of marriage counselling I left once he became abusive. In hindsight I was in denial about a difficult marriage that had made me resentful and bitter.

The MM went back and as far as I know has repaired his marriage and demonised me completely. His DW doesn't know AFAIK.

As for me, I carried on with counselling for 2 years, I grieved, I blamed myself and was angry, sad apologetic and eventually accepting. And now I have a lovely DP who I love dearly and would never ever treat with such disrespect. I have been given another chance of happiness.

Take time to be sad and grieve. But be open to happiness in future. It will come when you are ready, and you will appreciate it all the more when it does.

The OP has said her marriage had some problems- that doesn't seem to be in doubt. Saying that she wouldn't have had an affair though if there hadn't been problems, is a projective leap.

As happens often on threads like these, other posters tend to give excuses even when the OP herself isn't offering them, or insisting that her behaviour was justified and reasonable. Probably one of the main reasons posters have been helpful to the OP on this thread is precisely because she's not seeking to justify her behaviour with the usual excuses.

I also think it's very odd advice to suggest she ditches counselling that appears to be helping her at this difficult time, when real life support is in short supply .

You need to work on your self esteem. A man cannot provide that for you, and tbh it is pretty clear why neither your mm or your DH no longer want anything to do with you.

Way to kick someone whose already down, Driz. I'm trying to work on my esteem issues through counselling. For what it's worth I am a career orientated person, which is in part why I have no children, and until MM have never relied on a man to bring me happiness.

Hi op,
I didn't know whether to post or not as I rarely post on relationship threads - I don't often have much advice to give as the advice given is usually excellent. But you sound so sad and down that I wanted to acknowledge your post.

You know why you are now in this situation and don't need other people to point it out to you. What you do need is to be kind to yourself. You had made a mistake but as others have said, you are only human. With the benefit of hindsight you may have done things differently but you didn't and now it is about putting your life back together. Whether this will be with your dh or not is not relevant at the moment, you cannot continue to live in the state that you are in or you will make yourself even more unwell. You need to take care of yourself too and if your dh does come to you to talk or reconcile, you will hopefully be in a better place to deal with this. You can apologise, you can be regretful but you cannot punish yourself forever.

Speak to friends, don't isolate yourself any more.

Driz you are talking nonsense! The OPs DH was with her for 15 years. He left because of a 3 year affair. It's early days, he may well decide to give the marriage another go.

OP please ignore comments like that. I find it interesting that you haven't actually indicated that you loved the MM, did you or was it just infatuation/lust? Something missing in your marriage?

OP I've been following your thread because I'm struggling to deal with the fact that my sister is having an affair.

I have been attacked on my thread for being "relaxed about adultery" because I'm keeping quiet and not telling my BIL. It seems some people come on these threads just to attack people - I guess they're hurting themselves and try and vent it on you.

I just wanted to add my support. Haverina's post says it all really - be kind to yourself.

People have affairs, you're not the first or the last. What you've done isn't the end of the world, you and your DH will recover from this and you will find happiness in the future.

Such a brave, grown up thing to say, OP:

'I wish I'd poured all my energies into fixing it instead of going down this destructive selfish path. I did feel dejected that we never had a child and maybe unknowingly acted in some kind of passive aggressive way.'

Here is a big unMN hug ]] for such courage and honesty. Well done girl, you keep going in that direction for a better life ahead.

fuckedup how are you doing today?

But Mango, your single experience doesn't prove that yours is the only way surely?
One of my closest friend's DH had an affair- they had been married for over 20 years but there had been no intimacy for a very long time- years and years. That marriage wasn't 'good' and it was no surprise to anyone that he strayed.
Most affairs exist either to plug a gap in the marriage, or as an ego boost, or through sheer boredom, or as an exist strategy.
Some people who are unhappy will seek another person for solace = affair. Some won't. There's not just one 'rule' about this.

*exit- though the typo might be valid too!

Such a shame that one throwaway comment from another poster has hijacked the thread of someone who never even suggested that her affair was caused by her marriage.

I'm sure we've all come across different types of affairs, but as I see it, the OP doesn't want to discuss why she had one, she wants some help dealing with her life now that it and her marriage have ended.

My comment about why the OP had the affair was intended to help the OP beating herself up about it. There is a sense from her posts that she is looking back on her marriage with rose tinted glasses to an extent, hence reason she is sounding disappointed that her husband wont reconsider things. My point was that things cant have been that great in her marriage otherwise she probably wouldn't have had the affair. Hence she needs to move forwards rather than looking back.
Let me add here that i am not saying all affairs come on the back of a problematic marriage but that problems at home are very often a catalyst.

Yes but we know the marriage had some problems. The OP had already said that. But it's a bit like saying to someone 'You wouldn't have shoplifted if you'd been rich' or 'You wouldn't have defrauded your firm if they'd treated you well as an employee'.

As Mango points out, some marriages have terrible difficulties to overcome and more still have the normal ups and downs. So just as someone who wants more money or more recognition will do all sorts of things to resolve matters short of their own dishonesty, it's the same in a relationship isn't it? An affair is quite a extreme act and it's likely to have far more root causes than just an unhappy marriage, otherwise everyone would have an affair when their relationship hit a bit of trouble- and patently they do not, even when they get the opportunity to.

I do agree that the OP needs to be objective about her husband's qualities and their relationship so that she isn't seeing him as some sort of injured saint though. But I think that's where the counselling will probably help a lot, especially as it's a rarity atm finding a thread which describes what sounds like a good counsellor!

Thanks for coming back to explain though age.

Thanks for all your messages of support and thought-provoking advice. I am still low and in some sort of denial, sleeping little and waking up realising I've cried. Dh has been over to get clothes and has reiterated that there is no going back and wants to start his life over without me - he is now saying he was unhappy long before I checked out of the marriage during the affair and feels he has played a part in the breakdown of our relationship. He has been beyond reasonable.

Does that seem authentic OP? What he's saying?

It sounds like that was a surprise to you?

I wonder whether he needs to believe that version of events, in order to make sense of this?

In a 'I could have controlled this if I'd chosen to' sort of way?