Marriage regrets (only four months in)

[notlikemoi]

To say I'm deeply embarrassed and ashamed of the situation I have found myself in would be somewhat of an understatement. I honestly haven't had a good nights sleep in months as I am wrecked with guilt!

I am turning to you guys as I have always felt that the people on here offer genuinely helpful and useful advice and (some) can even empathise with the OP- regardless of how immorally they have acted. (My best friend since childhood is the only person who is aware of everything that's gone and she sent me an email earlier this evening saying she's "tired of dealing with a selfish b" So as you can imagine I feel extremely lonely right now.

Four months ago I married a great guy. We have been friends since uni and romantically involved for the past 4 years. I was ecstatic when he proposed to me and thought I was the luckiest girl in the world to be with a guy who was such a great catch. However, roughly five months after the proposal I ran into the guy that used to be my brother's best friend and with whom I have always had a complicated relationship. During our teen years we had an on/off again relationship but things ended for good when we both went our separate ways for uni. So I guess you guys can work out the rest for yourselves. We ended up sleeping together and began seeing more and more of each other which eventually lead to us conducting an affair. (My hands are shaking as I type this, which honestly never happens)

We both came to the decision that we should leave our respective partners and "give things ago". However, I had a change of heart (wimped out?) at the very last minuted and decided my fiance was the guy I ultimately wanted to share my life with. I should add, I was slightly surprised with how unaffected the other guy was when I broke things off with him.Fast forward a few months and I now wish we had a future together.

So I just want to know have you guys experienced anything similar? I am desperate to read any advice you could possibly give! Thanks in advance.

No I have never experienced anything similar because I would never cheat.
I feel very sorry for your husband , you are very selfish.

Do you still want to be with your DH? The other guy didn't seen very bothered when you broke it off. Put him out of your mind.

People make mistakes.

Go and speak to your doctor.

If you have the funds Relate offer private counciling.

Do you think these doubts may just be the post wedding glimmer wearing off?

Write a list if pros and cons for both (make sure no one will find it ever!).

Write down how you think realistically your life with each would be, which would make you happier. You shouldn't stay in a marriage just because you feel guilty. That isn't fair on anyone.

Sounds like a classic case of wanting what you cant have. You know your husband is the better/wiser choice, thats why you decided to stick with him. Now your other bloke is exciting and off limits. It's kind of like the thrill of the chase. It may have worked as an affair but doesn't sound like it would work out in the long term. If he wanted to be with you he would have moved heaven and earth to get you to leave DH. He wasn't that bothered, by your accounts.

You also mention you have an on/off relationship with the other guy. These tend to end on 'off'. Is it really worth losing your husband to eventually also loose the other bloke?

Decide if you want to be with your DH or not. If you do, stop cheating. If you don't, divorce him.

No-one else should be part of that decision.

If you get divorced, then you can start thinking about other people.

Getting divorced because you don't want to be married to your DH is fine, not selfish.

Cheating makes you selfish scum. Don't do it.

I would put the fling down to a moment of madness.You say the other guy wasnt too bothered when you back tracked.
I would concentrate on the married life you have now.That is what i did when i had an affair.Mine went on for 2 yrs.The excitement of a fling holds no bearing on the day to day grind of real life.I would ditch the guilt as it is doing no one any favours.Good luck with it all.

You know it was immoral to have an affair so I am not going to flame you for that. However, don't be fooled into thinking the OM is some kind of mystical one that got away. His lack of concern when you split up tells you everything you need to know about that.

If you love your husband and want to make things work, then personal counselling is a must to get your head straight. The reality is that your marriage is probably doomed anyway because to move forward you will need to tell him what happened and then he will probably end the marriage for you.

Tell your DH what you have done and let him decide if he wants to stay with a cheat or find someone who respects him.

Plus let him know that he should have an STI test as he doesn't have a clue about your OM or his partners sexual history.

I don't get it , did you have the affair before your wedding or after ?

I don't know that the marriage is 'probably doomed'. Only the op knows if she wants to carry on with it and whether in her particular relationship telling dh is the best thing or to keep the guilt to herself and make a fresh start. OP yes I have been you..in my case I left and am now married to the other guy, very happily. I agree with the pp who said you must try to make a decision on your marriage regardless of anyone else.

FFS, cheating isn't the issue here, the OP is asking for help to make sense of her thoughts!

OP - I honestly think that you don't actually want to be with the other guy. It sounds as though he's not that bothered and may well let you down. If you left your DH, you'd probably end without either. Eventually. I think you're simply having a wobble about your decision.

Why do you use the word 'regrets'? In line with pp, the only way you can make a decision is to assess your feelings towards your husband and marriage leaving out the other guy completely.

Your best friend is totally right
About you. You cheated on your fiancé and still married him and now you are unsure? Either way even if you decide you want him please leave him, he does not deserve you at all.

Doesn't sound like there is a future for you and the OM from your past.

You need to decide if there is one with your DH. Maybe you could have counselling to help. Also maybe to move on from some sort of 'grass is greener' syndrome. If your marriage is to work at all you need to stop always thinking the grass is greener on the other side. something to help you with those thinking patterns would be useful whether you continue in your marriage or not.

If you can't commit fully to your DH 4 months in maybe you would be better to leave the marriage, regardless of whether someone is waiting in the wings or not, and let your DH find happiness with someone who can.

You might wish you had a future together with this other guy but you don't and never will have, or he would have been very bothered indeed when you ended it.

You've now made a life-long commitment to your husband. I suggest you try to honour it

Buyers' remorse is a common and very strong psychological reaction to making any important life choice. It's most often used in regards to housing, obviously, but it applies to romance tenfold. If you had enough doubts to remain with your husband at the crunch point, I promise you would almost certainly be having the same amount of regret the other way around. This is why affairs are such spectacularly bad ideas. For many people, the things they got from the other relationship remain full in their mind and they take for granted the present partner, forgetting the loss and regret they would feel the other way around.

I know how painful it is to go through what you have, and I feel very sorry for your poor DH. Read a book called 'The Passion Paradox' (sometimes called 'The Passion Trap') It neatly outlines why it is we feel more passion for those we are not with, and those even who reject us. the fact your OM responded so emotionlessly tells us all we need to know, and yet it will probably exacerbate your feelings for him, as a part of your brain wonders if you let a good thing go.

This is not the case. You are at the mercy of a complicated and unhelpful series of psychological responses which cause you to place value on the thing you don't have, and none of what you do. Nothing you say about the way you describe your husband makes me thing you should leave him, but if you don't begin to recognize your own behavior here as unhealthy and deeply biased, he should probably leave you.

Best wishes.

Darlin' take the day off from fretting about it. You're allowed time to yourself not thinking about others - bf, OMs DHs and what they expect of you. Take two days off or a week.

What's happened is gone. You are the architect of your future. Be polite and effective and get on with what you have to do but just be you without the other players.

Take a step back and see what rolls. You've put yourself centre stage. Hang out in the wings for a day or two. The drama will continue to play but when it's time to step into the limelight again you may have a different viewpoint.

I appreciate all the input so far, including the posts that have been uncomfortable to read.

I'm in absolute agreement that my first step has to be to decide whether or not I want to remain married or not to my husband. But this is exactly the problem I have. There are times when I feel with absolute certainty that a divorce is my only option but I am convinced of the reverse in just as often.

OM did text me shortly after the wedding saying something along the lines of "I made a mistake for not trying harder". He couldn't tell me why he didn't.
Rightly or wrongly I do think whether or not he wants to give us a proper go affects my overall decision.

Please accept that the fact he is not telling you that he does want to give it a go is all you need to know. To make it have even the slightest chance of success he would need such certainty and passion that a vague, almost pathetically back-handed text AFTER your wedding makes it really obvious to an outsider, he's just not that bothered. You are focusing on him to give you confidence and hope in a future without your husband. This is understandable but misplaced. It feels like grasping at straws.

You need to focus purely on your husband and yourself right now. you are using OM as a drug to feed your own mind when you feel down.

TOO GOOD TO LEAVE TOO BAD TO STAY will give you an answer on your relationship. It's a book by Mira Kirshenbaum.

So essentially, you're hanging on with your marriage until the Om decides whether he wants to make a go of things?

He never will OP. If he had you would be in no doubt.

Am not sure whether you should let your poor husband out of his misery and break up, or if there's anything left to save of your marriage.

Given your last post I'd be thinking the former.

You need to come clean to your husband. The decision to stay in the marriage should not be only yours, but his too. His marriage is like a house build on poor foundations. He deserves to know what has been going on so he can make a decision whether to stick with you or not. If he is to build a future with you, he needs to know what sort of woman you are.

Also, as I dont think you know what you want, being married is not fair on either of you. Let him go so he can find a decent woman that will love and cherish him.

Also, advice him to get himself to the GU clinic, in case you have infected him with some shit.

The mistake I made unfortunately was truly underestimating the difficulty I would have with accepting a life that excluded OM completely.

Well obviously you should not have gone ahead with the marriage. However difficult it may seem i suggest that you end it now. i don't believe to will ever offer you what you want and better to end it before it destroys you or your partner.

Its shit i know but it is what it is. If you are able to do this you may want to take some time to examine what you really need from a relationship and what you are able to offer in one. Obviously it goes without saying that at the moment, to an outsider, it appears to be very little right now, but it doesn't always mean it will be that way.

Oh and you definitely need to get yourself and your husband checked for STI's.

He sounds as if he came back before your marriage to mark his territory.

Then text after your marriage to mark it some more.

The man is destructive. A bastard. He doesn't want you but he doesn't want anyone else to have you either.
He just wants to be a worm eating away at your core. The facts is that he's probably incapable of having a proper relationship with someone.

I've no idea what you can do abt the situation your in but one thing is for sure, if you end up with the OM you will more than likely find he can't be faithful to anyone.

Grow up. Stop wanting what you can't have.

The om wasn't even bothered from the sounds of things.

To be fair I think you've doomed the marriage already. I hope I'm wrong.

The OM is not a good guy to build a future with, please leave this aside. Everything you've said implies you fancy him, you love the idea of life with him, you don't love him.

A good friend ended her marriage, after an affair because her husband wasn't as exciting. She now bitterly regrets this because she underestimated how important the good qualities her husband had were to her.

I honestly think you should give it a real try with your husband. Block OM's number and email, then give 6 months of genuine effort to your husband. When your husband is a bit grouchy or boring or whatever, dream of the fantastic marriage you could have with husband. Make that the fantasy, don't give OM head or heart space.

See how that goes. Maybe you are wrong for each other but give it a real chance. It's not fair for husband to be unknowingly competing with a fantasy caricature of OM. It's up to you whether you tell husband but please don't cheat. It will hurt everyone badly, you included.