How do you think you would have reacted if it was the other woman who told you about her affair with dh?

[ThreeTimesALady]

Assuming she's not somebody that you know, or have ever met.

Would it be worse than finding out for yourself?

Would you be glad you finally knew the truth either way?

I guess maybe counselling would be good to explore why this is, but have no idea how I could afford that at the moment.

How much does it cost OP?

Again, for the third time, I ask you - what legal and financial advice have you taken?

Counselling costs around £40 a session (depending where you live) and you can also be referred freely on the NHS. Even if you did it fortnightly it would be beneficial and I'm sure cheaper than meeting up for sly drinks and the odd hotel room.

Perhaps your rationality and your emotional selves are not so far apart as you think, OP. all your behavior and explanations are entirely rational; if the pure motivation is to get and do whatever you want. In that case everything you believe and claim is just facts moulded around a rational aim which is to protect yourself from hurt. Perhaps you think everyone is like this, but they aren't. There is a range. Being highly rational can also make it far easier to discount others feelings and even existence because it is easy to focus purely on your lived experience and your view of the facts and shut down the natural empathizing that comes more easily to kinder, more courageous souls.

I am beginning to wonder if you are stringing everyone along here. It seems clear to me you have no intention of doing anything much really until someone else forces something or you break everything in order to get someone else to force something.

ps the 'declaration' that you are a controlling person is absolutely no surprise to anyone, OP. If you think it is you are bizarrely mistaken about yourself, the perception of you and affairs.

Having an affair is an extremely controlling thing to do. How else could it exist? Irrational, disorganized people might act out or do something impulsive but they don't engage in long term, arrangement based deceptions.

I feel like you still haven't bothered to look into any of the good advice given to you here, and even the way you talk suggests you've barely bothered to google affair. If you don't care that much, OP, it's hard for us to.

I have looked into counselling, but not found anything for less than £40-50 an hour. I could do a couple of sessions, but I'm guessing I'm going to need a bit more than that!

I've not gone as far as getting legal advice, but I have looked into the financial situation in some detail. I have a fair idea what I would be entitled to.

Merlincat - a bit harsh(!), but I can see why you might think that. The truth is, I've been a mum for about 12 years and I have absolutely given my all my kids in that time. Too much probably. Much too much. When they are babies I gave up everything for them. Work, social life, looking after myself, everything. I never let any of them cry for a second, I never put any of them down, I never let anybody else look after any of them.

I don't know why I was like this (controlling, I guess), but it years of it has absolutely done me in and now they are not babies anymore, I seem to be going off the rails a bit .

It all smacks of boasting and getting off on people wasting their time on giving you advice.

You're not going to give him up, you want to tell his darling wife and you are not listening to anything here no matter how much you say you are.

Like PP said, your poor children.

The truth is, I've been a mum for about 12 years and I have absolutely given my all my kids in that time. Too much probably. Much too much. When they are babies I gave up everything for them. Work, social life, looking after myself, everything

You are a Mum!! You even sound resentful of what you have given up for your children!!

I can't read anymore, not wasting my time. Do what you want, you will anyway.

Women often have affairs as as result of feeling they have given themselves to others for years and want something 'just for them'.

There are many different ways of getting that though. You could work with your husband to achieve that or leave your husband and make that part of it. The OM is not a psychologically useful of going about getting that. His lack of love for you will hurt you more anyway, leaving aside other people.

A couple of sessions would undoubtedly help and you could save up to return down the line as things progress.

It always seems there are a lot of reasons for you not to do things that cause you minimal hassle and only a few reasons not to do things that will destroy innocent people's lives.

OP are you the same poster that posted about 'We are both married and have no intention of leaving our partners' a short while ago? This sounds so similar.

It's clear you have no intention of separating from your dh so, sorry, remind me, what was the point of this thread again

No, no that's not me. I don't remember reading that one?

I have posted about this once way back when the affair was first starting, but not at all since then.

I don't have any immediate plans to leave dh, no. But this thread has helped. I'm just trying to work through how I got to this. What made me do it? And can I undo it?

What made you do it?

Seemingly, lack of connection with your husband, fear of conflict, feeling of giving all the time (to children and family) and wanting to take something back, a propensity to ignore or even not believe in the feelings of others, entitlement, narcissism and a love of the attention and flattery, opportunity, lack of ability to see the emotional consequences of something through either emotional coldness and/or lack of intelligence/wisdom.

That's it really.

Can you undo it? No, obviously not. And if you could I'd suggest you use the time machine for less selfish purposes.

So really your question should be, what now?

AND EVEN TWO SESSIONS OF COUNSELLING WILL HELP WITH THAT

What is it you want, exactly? Would you want to live with him and your kids but not his? Or would you want to live with him and his kids? Or maybe just a place for the both of you with nobody's kids?

The sad fact of the matter is, your relationship with your husband is doomed.

Either you come clean about what has been going on these past two years, and inevitably break up.

Or you cut contact with the OM, and focus on your marriage. And you just know what's going to happen then, right? You end up resenting the absolute hell out of your husband, who in his ignorance, has no idea what you've 'given up' for him.

So you're even worse off thwherefore you went into this affair, hating and resenting him even more. You've made this huge sacrifice of giving up the OM, and your husband doesn't even have the damn grace to appreciate it!

There is no way an already unhappy marriage can survive that.

What isn't doomed is your relationship with yourself. If you stop being so passive in all of this and wrest some control back for yourself, you might actually get a bit of a much-needed boost to your self-esteem.

The other thing which isn't necessarily doomed is your relationship with your children, but in order to ensure you haven't done irreparable damage there, you really now need to step up to the plate and stop letting the men in your life make all the decisions for you.

Again, this is all completely your choice, but it's whether or not you have the strength of character to follow through. It's kind of too important not to, but of course many people before you have failed. There's unfortunately no particular reason you won't fail, too.

merlincat

That was uncalled for. Just because she made this stupid mistake, doesn't mean she doesn't love her kids.

I've heard it all now...

"but once I feel that way all sense goes out the window"

You really need to stop being a passenger in your life, but for as long as you think this description is OK (it might be currently accurate, but that's not what I mean by OK) you are unlikely to do so.

And feeling 'love' for your DC is important, but is no substitute for adequately caring for them. I don't mean whether you have been attentive to their physical and recreational needs. I mean the risks to their emotional well being that you are choosing to take on their behalf.

You owned the decisions that brought you into this affair. You now need to own the decisions on what you do next.

Look OP you have got caught up in the situation. You were fed up responded to attention.
Now you can no longer compartmentalise the affair from your everyday life. You have feelings for him.

He's on your mind constantly and you want more attention from him like a drug and this isn't forthcoming so you decide to tell the wife because that will teach him .

Put him in a box and throw him away. Give the drug up day by day he's a nasty addiction. Sort your life out he's just a distraction from your problems.

I would be cross and upset and I would wonder about her motives.

Like others have said, the only reason you want to tell her is for YOU but you kid yourself that it's for her. He hasn't left her for you and you resent that.

Your marriage is failing BECAUSE you are having an affair. Because you've lost interest in making it work because you are putting your efforts into your affair. If you have your husband the thought and attention that you give your affair, don't you think your husband would love it? I bet you get dressed up for your lover, nice underwear, hair, clothes, make up, looking your best. Well how about you do that for your husband?

And your poor children. You and your husband could work through this, end up with a fabulous marriage, fabulous family life and your children wouldn't ever know about it. Your affair will potentially screw them up too. Are you prepared to one day have your kids look at you with disgust?

I also agree that his wife won't want to know what you look like, if ever he tells her. Those images will torture her forever. If she finds out then let her imagine you faceless, it will be easier for her.

Just to comment on the children thing. When my H was in his affair he treated his kids as an annoyance (much as I was I guess). He was stressed and feelign guilty and they made it worse. He was the most intolerant of them that he had ever been. He was not aware of it.

I have no idea whether you are at all like this OP, but I dont think it's all that outrageous to suggest that a parent involved in an EMA is not neccessarily at the top of their game.

@ormirian I think that observation is completely true.

OP... read and re-read Tessa's posts, please. You sound so 'switched off' and unwilling to read about any advice that isn't also encouraging you to talk about your affair. You will not find a sympathetic ear here - and why should there be? What you're doing is wretched, but there has been quite a lot of empathy for your situation but you need to take control of it and stop presenting as so passive (if that's what really are being, I'm not sure?).

Nobody wants to see your life implode but, if you don't take some positive steps towards at least seeing what is real, this is what will happen - either through discovery or you will do something to make the situation untenable. This can't end well and it will end. Have the sense to acknowledge that to yourself even if you don't to anybody here, and do something to make your life into some semblance of what you want it to be. A start would just be to end the affair to give you the opportunity to re-set so that you can take in what is around you and which bits you want and which you don't.

Sorry Threetimesalady.

You are the OW and the spineless bugger you're sleeping with won't thank you.

If he hasn't left already, that tells you he ain't planning on leaving his real partner after 2 years.

Oh, this has hundreds of posts..my cache must be fluffed!

bows out gracefully, reads all posts...