Before I start, I fully accept that I may well get flamed - but I need to get this out. Have name changed as some people in RL know my username. Sorry that this will be long, but I don't want to drip feed.
I've been with my DH for ten years, married for seven. Two and a half years ago I had an affair. I didn't realise it at the time but it followed all the cliches - I became good friends with OM, started feeling like he understood me so much better than DH, I began to question everything with DH and thought I had fallen out of love with him, OM just seemed to 'get me', we had a lot in common, etc etc. I now realise that although my feeling like that highlighted issues DH and I were having, I was just making those issues far worse and had emotionally 'checked out'. Although I felt like I had tried speaking to DH about the issues I clearly didn't try hard enough - though he did admit he didn't make that easy because he took a bit of a head-in-sand approach.
I spent six months trying to decide whether to leave DH, and being too cowardly to end things with either man as I was scared of losing the 'wrong one'. OM (who was single) told me he loved me more than he ever had anyone, that he'd wait for years if necessary, that I was his whole life. Eventually I told him I could never leave DH and was ending it - cue him being distraught, telling me he couldn't cope without me, and so on. I was weak and went back. A fortnight later I then came to the decision that I would leave DH. OM did a very abrupt U-turn and said he didn't want me any more. He announced his new relationship (who he had just met) to everyone two weeks later, and moved her and her kids in with him and his kids three months after that.
It was really messy - I was distraught, I told DH everything, he was gutted, OM (who I still had to see) started to treat me like I was an evil witch (largely because I had told DH, and he couldn't bear the thought of other people thinking bad of him if DH told anyone), and it took me a long time to get over everything which eventually culminated in me having weeks off work for depression and DH and I splitting up for a couple of weeks (instigated by me). I cut all contact with OM and have remained that way.
Since we got back together things have been good. I am so, so glad that DH gave me a second chance. At the time OM took the decision out of my hands, but I shudder to think of how my life might have turned out if I had actually been stupid enough to leave DH. I would have lost my soulmate, my best friend, the best thing to ever happen to me. I absolutely adore him and I cannot believe how incredibly lucky I am that he still wants me after everything I did to him. I have nothing but respect for the way he handled things - with complete dignity, and he has never brought it up to use against me.
However, I am finding it increasingly difficult to come to terms with what I did. I have no desire to ever see, speak to, or hear from/of OM again. My relationship with DH is better than it has ever been, and we are far more open with each other than we were before. I love him more than I could ever say and I know that there is absolutely no way I would ever do anything like that again - I understand why I did it (reason, not justification, as there is none). I just cannot bear the thought of what I did and wish I could just wipe it from my mind. Every time I hear a name like OM's, or his GF's, or see someone that looks vaguely like them, I am haunted again by it all. It's like I'm always looking over my shoulder.
DH and I are overjoyed to have just found out we're expecting our first child, but still the thought of what I did makes me feel sick and burst into tears. I don't know how to get past this. It isn't anything DH has done - as I've said, he has (somehow) forgiven me, and never uses it against me. I can't talk to anyone in RL about it, and I feel awful talking to DH about it because I just feel so selfish for even feeling bad. I feel like I don't have a right to be upset because it's all my own fault. I have changed a lot since then, and have learnt so much about myself and about how to deal with things, but it's not getting any easier. Sometimes it just consumes me and I just sit and sob because I don't know how to cope with the fact that I put my quite frankly awesome DH through hell. I know I deserve this but that doesn't help me get through day-to-day. If anyone has any advice I would love to hear it.