Would you stay or go?

[SoWhatNoww]

I had an affair and DH found out. He wants us to make a go of it and is adamant that he does not want time apart to think about this. It was with someone we both know and he blames the other person rather than me, I have told him that it was my fault, i Was the one who made a commitment to him etc but he still doesn't seem to accept that its my fault.

I am very sorry for what I have done, at the time I thought I was in love and didn't think about DH at all. I was stupid and selfish and I'm sorry to say I played the classic cheaters game, saying my marriage was dead in the water etc, when realistically it wasn't that bad.

DH is understandably all over the place, happy one minute then angry, upset, confused etc. I really feel that some time apart would help us both come to terms with what's happened but he will not even entertain the idea. He feels like if I want to be away from him for a couple of hours then I hate him or that I'm going back to the other person. I also feel that he is trying to make me happy, Which is the total opposite from what I feel should be happening. Surely it should be me trying to make things better as it was me that fucked up in the first place.

I'm really confused and want to go and stay with my dad for a week or 2. I really don't think that spending every spare second with DH is helping either of us. I need to understand why I did what I did (it was completely out of character, I don't even understand how I could do that to him but i did) and I think DH needs time to digest everything that has happened and make a proper decision on what he wants.

I know this is all a bit jumbled but im just looking for advice. I have stopped contact with the other person completely, spent 2 weeks completely focusing on my marriage but I don't feel like we are getting anywhere. Neither of us are happy. I know its very early days but I can't help the way I feel, It's like he is willing to make himself very unhappy just to keep me which makes me feel terrible. He is making himself ill.

I'm rambling now just wanted to get it written down. I know I sound like a terrible person and I admit I have behaved like one.

So I guess my question is would you leave for a week or 2? Is time apart always the best thing or should I stay put?

I think you should do whatever your DH wants you to at the moment. He is not making himself ill, the situation that you have caused is making him ill. It is extremely early days and you shouldn't expect any sense of stability or moving forwards. It is just going to be a horrible mess for some time.

Sounds like he may be experiencing hysterical bonding.

I think you should do what your Husband wants you to do at the moment.
Some people when faced with this situation need space, others cling.
At the moment he is clinging and isn't coping with the thought of you being away from him, he is thinking you will leave / see other man so at the moment i think you will need to be there to reassure him.

Try having little times apart. so go and have a long soak in the bath, go to bed with a book early so you are not in each others pockets but you are in the same house so he is not letting his mind twist into thinking what you are upto. Think it will have to be baby steps for a while.

Chiming in to say the same: it's about him right now, OP. Let him do whatever he needs to do in order to process this his way.

Utterly agree with pps. Your DH should be calling all the shots.
I hope you can both work it out.

Agree totally with the others. He needs you at the moment and I think your guilt is making you want to run away. You owe him the chance to talk, ask questions, reassure him, take care of him. If his way of dealing with your rejection and betrayal is to be clingy that's the way it is, unless you don't want to continue in the marriage. If that's the case end it now.

This is a situation of your making and it's not about your needs now.

And think about counselling together and apart for you so you can work out why this happened. Affairs don't happen in a void. YOu did this for a reason and soemwhere buried in your marriage is the answer. if you don't find out you could find the same issue crops up again.

I think you should go to your dad's. It is your job to fix this since our broke it but your DH pressuring you to stay when you want space isn't actually going to fix this. He's clinging because he is scared but fear isn't enough to sustain a relationship.
Arrange couples counselling before you go to your dad's so you can both meet at counselling. Ask DH what he needs you to do to reassure him whilst you are at your dad's.
It sounds as if you don't have space to think just now that you are both going to steamroll over this. You can't. It's a cataclysmic event. You both need to acknowledge the enormity of it.

Do what he wants you to do, you created this mess so don't make the situation worse for him by taking off and leaving the poor man sat home imagining you are up to all sorts

Thanks for the replies everyone. My head is a mess and his is worse, I accept that it's not him that's making himself ill, It's the situation that I created that is doing that. I really don't understand why I did it and that's what I would like time to figure out. I love him but the affair lasted 3 months, I lied a lot and took advantage of the trust we had built up over almost 10 years. I really don't understand why he hasn't thrown me out.

Interesting to hear a different point of view APlaceOnTheCouch. I thought I was going to get a unanimous stay vote. The guilt is killing me, but without space and time to process what happened I think we will just slip back into how it was before but it will be different as he wont trust me. I feel like we have to make this work for us not just because he is scared that I will go elsewhere if that makes sense.

He says he wants 100% honesty from me but do people really mean that when they say it? Does he want to know that I miss the other person and the friendship we had before it turned into more? I think that may be too honest. I know I sound like a horrible person but I'm just trying to work all this out.

You will need space and time, but that will come over the coming months or even years. At the moment just be kind and supportive and take things slow.

If you still have feelings for the other person, then you should be honest. Your DH needs to know where he stands.

You need time away from each other to know what you want. You clearly don't know whether you want to stay married or whether you'd like to be with the other man or whether you want to be on your own. Something isn't right and having an affair hasn't made it any clearer. It would obviously have been better to take time out before you had an affair but you can't change that now.

Your dh also needs to think about whether if you do end up back tigether, that he can forgive and forget.

Please get counselling with your DH.

Just spending time apart isn't going to do it.

If you both want to move on from this, there is a lot of work to be done and you need professional help to guide you though.

Give it your all and make the most of this second chance.

Do you want to stay married? It honestly doesn't sound like
You do.

You need to be at a stage where you would do anything for
Your DH to forgive you so you could
Be together.

It's going to get harder as time
Moves on because you need to
Understand you DH will have no trust in you and will be angry.

It sounds like you think your marriage may be over but you don't want the responsibility of making that decision.

You are allowed to walk away if it is not working. You don't have to have a concrete reason to leave someone. That it isn't right should be enough.

If you need space to think then take it. But you have to accept that that space to think may have him come to a different conclusion that you. You BOTH have to want to be together to make it work.

I have ruined relationships by staying rather than taking the time away that I knew I needed.
imo if you feel guilty and want him to throw you out to 'punish' you then you're just going to self-sabotage if you stay. You will be looking for when he is going to punish you. He will be looking for when you are going to cheat or lie. But you will both be pretending, you are happy and working at putting it all back together. I don't think proximity helps in this case (although I see I am in the minority).
Why not have a joint meeting with a counsellor asap? And make that session about why you want space and he doesn't. Then you can hopefully come to an agreement about the next step.
If you feel you need to leave then that's what you need to do. Once you both decide that you are salvaging this relationship - that's the part where the work is on you because you are the one who wrecked it.

I am with aplaceonthecouch on this one. You aren't even sure you want back in so take time out to work that out first. None of us are perfect so try not to feel guilty, it's pointless. I get really fed up with people being expected to throw themselves on a stake because they made a mistake, this will just make you miserable. Be the adult, work out why you did what you did and what you want. But remember that if you do that your DH may well decide in the meantime he can't work on it. Xxx

I'm going to put in from my experience as it is right now. Husband cheated on me with a mutual friend. I didn't want him to give me space because to me space wasn't going to help me. Space was going to make me feel worse because I needed to spend the time rolling through the emotions with him. He had to see me at my rawest anger & upset & at my highest high when I felt like our marriage was on top of the world.

It's hard for both parties. He doesn't like seeing me so angry & hurt but he knows he's behind that. It took me a while to accept that he is just as much to blame as the other one. That hurt a lot because the man I married i no longer recognised.

Then we sat down, talked about what we wanted & agreed neither of us knew how to fix this. What we did know was that clearly something had to change. So we made a promise list. We listed all the things big & small that we promise to do with each other. Things like remind each other what you love about them, laugh at least once a day, go out together. Right now I feel better about our marriage & I have done for almost a month now. I went through a phase where I felt like I should work harder & be a better person to make him not do it again, but something in me clicked & I realised that all that mattered was that we were happy & he loved me.

Trust takes a long time to come back, sometimes it never does. You have to be patient both of you & you I'm afraid have to take it all in.

Do you want your marriage to end?
Was it really an exit affair?

Because most in your position would be grateful for the way your husband is behaving .... yet you want to pull away from him.

Of course he's feeling so insecure right now and needs you by his side. You should be the one reassuring him, but he seems so afraid of loosing you that he's totally blaming the OM.

Yes ..He's also afraid you wanting space is code for 'let me seperate and see how it might work out with OM', thus making your husband plan B if it doesn't work out.

Is it really that you aren't sure if you want the marriage? And need time to figure that out?

I recommend the book 'how to help your spouse heal from your affair' by Linda Macdonald.

Also to give you an insight into the feelings a betrayed husband goes through, here is a link. The first post on the thread might resonate with you.

www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=590532

I just realised I didn't answer your question.
You need to be honest with your husband and if you need time away to figure out if you want to stay married, or to dig deep and look into why you did this for the betterment of your marriage .... then tell him that and leave.

However, be prepared for him to give you a timescale to decide or for him to say he's going to file for D if you leave. Some BSs do this.

It doesn't come over like he'll do that from his reaction so far.