Affair with boss

[Justnotsure123]

New here and I know many of you are going to have your claws out for me but I need to vent somewhere.

So at the end of last year my marriage was on the rocks, i was staying for my daughter, kept up the pretence to my partner and trundled on - I would probably still be trundling but then ....

I started to get a lot of attention from my boss, we worked together all day five days a week - we started staying after work, I started work earlier .. Then we started to text all through the night, hundreds of texts and calls ...
He had a partner and two children, I knew them - I knew her not as a friend but I saw her a lot and still I carried on.
She found out and left.
I carried on texting and calling - then spent the night with him about three days after she left.
She threatened to tell my husband unless I came clean, so I told him and he left.

All these months on and I don't know what I feel, I have continued this tryst behind closed doors, we've not rushed into anything but we didn't stop and think about the hurt we had caused everyone, but slowly it's catching up with me and I don't know what to do with the guilt I feel. Two families are hurting, two families that can't be fixed because of our selfishness .. Do I carry on and live with the guilt? Or is this just going to end as badly as it started ?

As one of the 'bitter' cheated on wives, I would just like to point out from personal experience:

1. The marriage was clearly unhappy to both of us prior to his affair, but he never made an effort to even talk about it let alone make plans to see if it can improved

Fine if that means he already gave up, but

1. He crawled back begging for forgiveness and telling me he actually loved me! I found out because OW approached me and she did because she realised he never intended to leave the unhappy marriage. She loved him to pieces because of his image as a loving father and martyr.

I am sure it's not the only case. Majority of parties in affairs especially men never plan to leave. I somehow feel women are different in this aspect. Probably because we make decisions with different body parts.

Oh and he said he was only after a flirt. 'I will never leave you and our son', said he.
More funnily in the very last effort to see if the marriage is salvageable, I suggested counselling as I did for years previously. His response? Oir relationship is strong enough to overcome this.

"What about the men that leave their wives and go on to form new relationships that last for the rest of their lives?"

Of course that happens. In fact one of my oldest friends has been happily married to her 'MM' for over 10 years now. But that is, at least in part, because after the divorce he addressed HIS issues and was determined never to allow HIS new relationship to deteriorate to the extent that his first marriage did. It was his responsibility to deal with what made him unsatisfied - no-one else's. He still feels regret over the way his first marriage ended and the hurt he caused even if the outcome is a good second marriage. Any issues he had should have been addressed years before not in the destructive way he went about it.

BTW I will put my hand up to having a pretty miserable marriage when H had his affair. We were both aware of it and both had made desultory efforts to fix things. Why was it miserable? Too little time, too much to do, to many stresses for many many years. Of course H could point out things I had done and I could point out things he had done. It's never as simple as 'well if you had done X and Y I wouldn't have cheated'. In any long relationship there will a history of mistakes, resentments and hurt - caused by both sides. They have to be addressed by both sides not by one side unilaterally deciding to look elsewhere. Whatever a marriage is like before an affair, you can bet it will be a fucking train wreck afterwards.

GirlWithaPearlEarring

thank you for your post, that really struck a chord with me

If you didn't think the fallout would be so great I guess you know better now. I think there is something to be said for crying over spilt milk, it might make you stop and think another time.

Tryst - that's a pretty word for something unsavoury.

So many women on here who's husbands have left them due to affairs. I don't understand what you expect of a man? To tell you he doesn't love you anymore and leave in an amicable way?

Is that so hard to fathom, Satinslippers ?
if YOU was unhappy and someone flattered you and caught your eye what would you do???
Er, finish one relationship before embarking on another?
Don't tell me let me guess - you'd probably tell your partner,
"You know, if you met him under different circumstances, you’d think he was a great guy!"